A teenager who verbally abused Prof Chris Whitty in the street has had his PlayStation confiscated by his mother as punishment, it has been reported.
The boy’s behaviour was widely condemned after a video emerged showing him repeatedly accusing England’s chief medical officer of lying about the pandemic.
As Whitty was buying lunch at a Mexican food stall in a street in central London, the 15-year-old boy is heard saying to Whitty: “You’re a liar. You lie about the Covid-19 cases … stop lying to the TV, man.”
The teenager, who has not been named, filmed himself making the false claims to Whitty and shared the video on TikTok. The video was later posted on Twitter by the Conservative MP Matt Vickers, who described the boy’s behaviour as “appalling”.
Now his mother, 47, has joined in the condemnation and told the boy to record another video apologising to Whitty, according to an interview in the Mail Online. It quotes her as saying: “I was horrified when I saw how rude my son was to Mr Whitty. That is not how I have brought him up and not the behaviour that I expect from him.”
And she explained how she’d punished the boy, saying: “I have taken away his PlayStation, which is the thing he loves the most. I have not grounded him because he is already suffering enough from the lockdown and does not go out as much as he used to.”
Whitty was more forgiving. When asked about the incident at Wednesday’s Downing Street briefing, he said the “young lad” appeared to be “showing off”.
He added: “I didn’t think anything of it frankly, I was very surprised it was picked up by the media at all, as anything of any importance. “I’m sure he’ll become a model citizen in due course and hopefully more like Captain Tom, who was the kind of person who I think much more exemplifies the spirit of the UK.”
The boy’s mother suggested her son’s video was a sign of the impact on the mental health of young people during the lockdown. She said: “He was trying to give a message across to Mr Whitty and make him understand what he and other youngsters are going through, but I’m very upset and angry with him over how he did it.”
She told Mail Online: “He’s actually quite an intelligent boy.”