Lawyer’s 4-letter rant at children looking for ball
A HOMEOWNER filmed screaming at boys who kicked a football into his garden is a high-flying barrister, it has emerged.
The footage of the man’s four-minute rant at the youths – in which he told them he would report them for burglary – has been viewed more than 60,000 times on YouTube.
Mail-Online has discovered that the man in the film is Richard Hearnden, a well-respected lawyer who has prosecuted a string of high-profile cases.
In the video, Mr Hearnden, 40, is shown screaming: ‘You don’t f****** climb in my garden ... I’ll put you all under f****** pressure. Don’t give me lip. Don’t. Give. Me. Lip!’
He adds: ‘ You are over the age of criminal responsibility and you can go to the youth court if you want and you can answer a charge of burglary.’
When he walks off after the argument, he tells the boys he won’t be returning their football.
Twitter comments were split between those supporting Mr Hearnden in the face of provocation and those saying he dealt with the situation badly. In a description of the video, the schoolboy who posted the film insists they had not climbed into the garden of Mr Hearnden’s £550,000 home in Hove, East Sussex.
He wrote: ‘The ball was kicked over a wall into a garden by accident. A few of the kids who were playing football went to the resident’s house they thought it went into and knocked on their door.
‘There was no answer at first and they waited for a minute or two. The kids then decided to check an alleyway which the ball might have landed in but the angered man came out of his house and accused the kids of jumping into his garden. The kids hadn’t been in his garden though.’
Social media posts suggest Mr Hearnden had fought a long-running battle with children playing football in the park next to his home.