Man Washed Swearing Boy’s Mouth With Soap - Just Like “The Good Old Days”

Alfi’s mum signed a waiver, so he can be legally named and pictured (SWNS)

A man washed a child’s mouth out with soap, after the youngster told him to ‘f*** off’ and tried to kick an old man’s walking stick.

Angry Rian Birtwell, 23, spotted six-year-old Alfi’s behaviour in a park near his home and confronted him.

It has emerged that the joiner, originally from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was well known to the family and used to babysit for Alfi.

Rian alleged that he had seen the boy kick an old man’s cane and told him to stop - but the youth told him to 'f*** off’ and called him a 'gay boy’, a court heard.

His bizarre response was to walk into a nearby shop, buy a three pack of soap, pin the boy down and stick a bar in his mouth.

Alfi told his family about the incident on April 11 in Washington, Sunderland, and they contacted police.

Rian pleaded guilty to assault at Sunderland Magistrates Court. He was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £85 court costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Jason Smith, mitigating, said: “Rian is walking along the road minding his own business. He is a young man who is very affable.

"He sees the boy run across to an old gentleman with a stick and tries to kick the stick away.

"He remonstrates with him to which the boy - who the police, I have to say, accept that he is slightly out of control and perhaps not the best of young individuals - says to Rian to f**k off.

"Rian says to him to stop swearing and when he doesn’t he says back 'stop swearing or I will wash your mouth with soap,’ something that used to happen in the good old days.”

Mum, Lynne Forsyth - a personal banker - denies Alfi was violent to a pensioner (SWNS)

Defending Alfi after the hearing, his mum Lynne Forsyth, 36, said: "At the end of the day, he is a 23-year-old bloke who has assaulted a six-year-old. The sentence is a joke.”

The personal banker says her son Alfi did swear but had not been violent towards an OAP.

She said: “There was no old man at all. He was in a park at the time with his older brother and various other friends. There were quite a few people around him.

"I think he [Rian] has made up the old man to defend himself. I don’t know where this old man has come from at all.”

Lynne - who claims she has lived on the estate in Sunderland for 34 years without any problems - was even friends with Rian’s mum before the incident, but isn’t anymore.

She added: "My son has got a lot of allergies - asthma and eczema - soap and things aggravate him. He could have had a reaction. Who’s to know?”