A British Man Accused Of Farting In A Child’s Face Is Facing Child Cruelty Charges

A British man thought he was just roughhousing and fooling around when he farted in a boy’s face, but neither the child nor his family thought it was funny at all. As a result, he is now on trial for child cruelty.

Gary McKenzie doesn’t deny that he got liquored up following a rugby game and then took things a bit too far when he horsed around with a child. But he thinks child cruelty charges are a bit much for drunken horseplay, and he’s taken his case to trial, according to the Northern Echo.

22 years ol Roofer Gary McKenzie, dragged to court for farting on child’s face!.. LOL!… https://t.co/Ccn8JM5vfF pic.twitter.com/NUadVx0lkF

— GiftAdeneNews.com (@adene_gift) October 20, 2016

Prosecutor Paul Abrahams, undoubtedly trying his darndest to keep a straight face while reading the charges, explained to the court the severity of McKenzie’s alleged crime.

“At Darlington in the County of Durham, being a person who had attained the age of 16 years, you wilfully ill-treated the child, namely by breaking wind in his face, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health Contrary to section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.”

McKenzie admits that he had “around ten pints” of beer at a rugby club, and then started horsing around with male child under the age of 16, whose name and age are not being released due to the U.K.’s strict privacy laws.

As in almost all cases, there is more to this story. Prosecutors aren’t trying McKenzie just for farting in a child’s face. Some of the other accusations against McKenzie transcend just goofing around and entered into the realm of child cruelty, and one particular allegation against him could probably be considered sexual assault.

Prosecutors say that a drunken McKenzie punched the boy on his arm, “sucked” his eye [we’re not sure what that means, and frankly, we’d rather not speculate], and held a pillow over the face of another boy. According to an earlier Morning Echo report, he’s also accused of showing his “willy” and his “backside” to the boy.

Speaking to the court, the boy’s grandfather explained why he decided to press criminal charges against the 22-year-old roofer instead of just dismissing the events as mere horseplay. He says that when he saw the bruise on the young boy’s face from the “sucking,” he started asking questions.

“He told us Gary had held him down and sucked his eye. He said he hadn’t liked it. It was an actual love-bite on his eye, and that’s when alarm bells went off in our heads. My wife took a photograph of it.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the boy alleged that McKenzie had shown him his penis.

“The following week, the main things that were concerning to us was a conversation when he said had showed his willy in front of me, and said ‘do you wish you had one like that lad?’ He said Gary exposed his bare bottom to him, too, and at that point, we said enough is enough, and we called the police.”

To be fair, the boy thought the whole thing was funny, although criminal courts in the U.K. the U.S., or just about anywhere else don’t find humor in an adult exposing their genitalia to a child.

“He giggled about the willy incident, but I told him it wasn’t funny and it was inappropriate.”

As of this writing, the relationship between McKenzie and the boy in whose face he allegedly farted is unclear.

[Featured Image by MichaelJayBerlin/Shutterstock]