A MAN rubbed a "joke" fake poo on the face of a four-year-old child as they passed a city centre pub on Saturday afternoon.

The uncle of the child said his niece was now too frightened to return to the city centre after the man attacked her and her grandmother outside the Royal Exchange, Cornmarket at about 4pm.

Tayyib Nawaz said the "coward" received cheers from his mates for his attack and pub landlord Terry Clarke said he kicked the gang of 20 out after being alerted.

Police are treating the attack as racially motivated.

Disgusted regulars saw the attack - which is thought to have been filmed by one of the group - and now officers are hoping they and others will come forward.

Mr Nawaz said: "My mum, my sister, with her 18-month-old son in a pushchair and daughter, aged 4, were walking through town and some "man" thought it would be cool to try and rub fake poop in my niece's face, then he tried to do the same to my mum too which he received a load of cheers.

"Now my niece is too frightened to even go back into town.

"Nobody intervened. Absolutely disgusting!"

His sister believes they were targetted because they were wearing headscarves and Asian clothing.

"Nothing was verbally said but my sister felt they were targeted because of what they were wearing.

"From anyone that could have been targeted at that moment on that street, they picked on my family.

"And then clearly when my family didn't like it they picked it up off the floor and then began trying to rub it onto my niece and my mum.

"At this point my sister was shouting at them to grow up and they did not feel any remorse or guilt."

The man is described as a white, in his late 20s or early 30s with light brown hair.

He was approximately 6ft in height and of an average build with "chubby cheeks".

He was wearing three quarter length white trousers and dark blue or navy blue shoes. He had short light brown hair and may have had some facial stubble.

Mr Clarke, landlord of The Royal Exchange, said the group, believed to be from the Black Country, became aggressive when he barred them from his pub.

They were at the pub for about 45 minutes before they attacked the woman and her granddaughter.

"They were on a pub crawl in Worcester and there was about 20 of them - the majority of them were just enjoying themselves, they were older gentleman.

"But there was five or six younger lads who had a fake dog poo and were messing around.

"I told them to stop and to get back on our pavement then the next thing I know there's a big commotion out there.

"I had a couple of women come in and tell me what happened, they had tried to rub the poo in an Asian woman's face.

"That was the last straw.

"I went out there and told them they needed to leave and the guy started giving me a mouthful but I said enough's enough."

The group tried to come back into the bar and became aggressive when they were refused but Mr Clarke and another city centre landlord said they would report them to police and tell other pubs in Worcester not to serve them.

"I told them it was out of order and, in my mind, it was racist because they had targetted an Asian woman.

"I don't stand for anything like that.

"It's very rare we have trouble around here.

"There are two things I don't like and that's racists and bullies and I won't stand for either.

"I said to the lad that done it that's someone's mum or wife or daughter, how would you like it if someone did it to your mum, but he just kept laughing and saying it was funny.

"Apparently, the family were really scared and, if I had the chance and had gotten out there quicker, I would have gone to see she was okay."

Inspector Gerard Smith of the Worcester Safer Neighbourhood Team said: "This was a distressing incident for this family, particularly the children, and has left them shaken.

"I want to stress that this sort of behaviour is not tolerated in Worcester or anywhere else in the West Mercia policing area.

"We are actively investigating and I would appeal to anyone who witnessed this incident to please come forward."

Anyone with information should call police on 101 quoting reference number 547 S 160716.