A lawyer said it was wrong that a man alleged to have been subjected to racial abuse by children had been charged with assaulting one of them after grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.

Solicitor David Matthews said his client, a man of good character and an upstanding member of the community, should have been cautioned.

The boy who had delivered foul racial abuse at his client had got away scot-free, he said.

Flintshire magistrates agreed the case against Ensa Beyai, of Maydor Avenue in Saltney Ferry, should be adjourned so that Mr Matthews could make representations to the CPS.

Mr Matthews said he would take it to the highest level of the CPS if necessary.

Magistrates said they would list the case in three weeks’ time without a plea being taken and they hoped ‘common sense would prevail’.

Beyai, 41, is charged that on June 16 in Chester Road, Saltney Ferry, he assaulted a boy aged 15.

Mr Matthews said his client was a man of good character who had been living in Saltney Ferry for several years. It had not been easy for him because of his ethnic origins.

“He has often suffered abuse at the hands of local children,” he said.

On the day in question he was the target of very unpleasant racist abuse from a group of schoolboys at a bus stop in Saltney Ferry.

“He crossed the road to remonstrate with the children and grabbed one of them by the collar. That is the prosecution allegation against him.”

At the police station, he admitted grabbing the boy by the collar. “There is no allegation that he struck the boy or used inappropriate language towards him,” said Mr Matthews.

Someone had decided it was in the public interest to prosecute him.

Racial abuse was wrong and inappropriate and the courts had been at the forefront of trying to ensure it did not happen in the area. His client should not be criminalised for what he had done, added Mr Matthews.

He would lose his good name and his future prospects would be affected, he said.

“It is wrong that he should be prosecuted for common assault. If he had struck him then that would be different,” he said.

A passer-by had not witnessed what had started the incident.

Beyai was a man who worked hard. While he lived locally he had travelled from Watford where he was employed for the hearing.

His wife lived at Saltney Ferry and had to live ‘with this sort of thing’.

He and his wife had, since the offence, been to a local school to speak to the headteacher and an announcement during the morning assembly was to take place that such behaviour was unacceptable.

Mr Matthews said he wanted the local decision of the CPS given further consideration and he would take it to CPS headquarters, to the top, if required.

Prosecutor John Wylde said the case had been reviewed by a senior prosecutor who was aware of the allegations and she had taken the view that he should be prosecuted.

“We are involved in an assault on a child, involving taking hold of him,” he said.

The defendant pulled him by the scruff of the neck, it was alleged, and another adult saw fit to speak to Beyai about the way he was behaving and talking to the young person.

Whatever the provocation, it could not justify taking the law into his own hands, particularly when the complainant was a boy of 15.

Mr Wylde said he was prepared to speak to the police about a possible caution and a three week adjournment would be sufficient for that to be done if it was thought to be appropriate.

But for a caution to be administered Beyai would have to admit what he had done.

Mr Matthews said Beyai accepted what he had done – he had grabbed the boy by the collar. He knew it was not acceptable. If he had his time again he would do it.

He should have gone immediately to the police where he would have been treated as the victim instead of being portrayed as the perpetrator, he said.

Magistrates said ‘common sense needs to prevail here’ and adjourned the case for three weeks – but said that if he had been cautioned in the meantime that would be the end of it.