It is the story that has gripped Australia this week, a classic who-dunnit with an unsavoury twist. Who put the poo into a pub diner's ice cream?

The tale involves a sports-mad family, a popular beachfront pub and a $19 (£8) bowl of ice-cream containing the very unwanted ingredient.

A Sydney family has alleged that the Coogee Bay Hotel, a popular drinking spot with British backpackers, served them a bowl of ice-cream containing faeces while they were enjoying a Sunday pub meal.

Steve and Jessica Whyte had gone to the ocean-side pub with their sons Tom, eight, Thomas, seven, and Ben, three, and another family in order to watch the National Rugby League grand final earlier this month. Atter complaining that they could not hear the television over the noise of the pub, they were given a free chocolate ice sundae.

Mrs Whyte scooped up what she thought was compacted chocolate, but by the time she realised it something other than ice-cream, it was too late.

“The minute I put the spoon to my lips, the stench went through my nostrils. I retched and spat it into the napkin,” she told Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

She said one of her sons screamed at the hotel staff: “you’ve made my mum eat poo”.

After their horror meal was revealed last weekend, "Poo-gate" as it has unsurprisingly been labelled has become the water cooler topic of the country. The frozen dessert is now the subject of legal battles and DNA testing as tit-for-tat allegations between the Whyte family and the hotel escalate.

After the incident the family immediately complained to hotel management and then the local police. They claim the hotel offered them $5000 (£2030) compensation which they refused on the grounds it was insulting.

The hotel management, which is insisting it is innocent of the claim, accused the family of trying to extort $1million (£406,000) from the business and said the hotel itself was a victim of sabotage.

As the, er, faeces continued to hit the fan, the pub claimed that it had the offending dessert tested, and it was found to be clear of contamination.

But when the Whytes submitted a sample of the contaminated ice cream, which they had kept in the freezer, to the NSW Food Authority, the department found that it did indeed contain faecal matter. It is now awaiting DNA results to discover whether it was human or animal excrement.

The Whytes and Coogee Bay Hotel staff members – including the hotel's then head chef Adam Wood - have all offered to be tested for DNA.

In a rather tasteless effort at damage limitation, the pub has even put on a special offer of free ice cream. It is unknown how many people have been brave enough to take them up on the offer.

Now, if any further evidence was needed that the Coogee Bay Hotel's reputation is deeply in the mire, celebrity agents are calling for Gordon Ramsay to step in to save the day.

The Coogee Bay Hotel – situated over looking the ocean at Coogee beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs - has had a troubled history.

There have been many incidences of drink-related violence and it is a favoured hang out of rugby league players and many of the thousands of British backpackers who flock to Sydney each year, who regularly crowd its beach front beer garden.

The hotel recently underwent an expensive re-launch of its brasserie restaurant and beer garden in an effort to revamp its image as a family-friendly hotel, albeit one to which the Whytes will never return.

Mrs Whyte said she was so shocked by the incident that she now struggles to wipe her young son’s bottom and is traumatised about eating out.

Mr Whyte said he is still stunned that someone would serve faeces of any sort to children.

He told one paper earlier this week: "We went to a pub and they served us s. . . . It's black and white. That's what happened."

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