Despite the Portuguese international's later apology, the mother of Jacob Kelly, an autistic boy who was 14 at the time of the incident, says she felt intimidated by the Manchester United player.

According to a report by the Mirror, Sarah Kelly said that a day after the attack, a man called Sergio claiming to be Ronaldo’s PA called her with an offer to meet the player at United.

She claims she was told by this person: “Do you know who Ronaldo is?”

She then recounted the conversations she had to the newspaper. “I told him, ‘Of course I do and the answer is no. I hung up and was shaking and crying. I felt intimidated. How dare they?” Sarah said the same man phoned again two days later saying Ronaldo would like to speak to her personally.

The player called but she described him as the “most arrogant man I’ve ever spoken to”.

“The phone rang again and a man said, ‘Hello this is Cristiano Ronaldo.’

“He asked me if I would like to come down and meet his family. He said, ‘I’m not a bad dad.’ I said to him, ‘I never said you were a bad dad.’

He said, ‘I had a terrible upbringing, I lost my dad.’ I said to him, ‘Everybody has a sob story Ronaldo, I lost my dad young, I’ve had cancer.’

“He kept calling me Jack and didn’t even know my name and I said, ‘My name is Sarah’ and he said, ‘Oh, Sarah, I’m sorry.’

“He never referred to Jacob by his name either, it was always ‘the boy’. ‘I know the boy’s got problems,’ he said. I told him, ‘He hasn’t got a problem, he has a disability, you’re the one with the problem.’

"He said ‘I’m sorry’ but then added, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ He said he hadn’t ‘kicked, killed or punched anybody’.

“That lit my fire, I was raging and my heart was pumping and I told him, ‘So you smacking my son’s hand and bruising it, is not hurting anybody?’

“He said I don’t want it in the media or press and the court. He said he had a good legal team, he would win and he would fight me all the way. He said he knew how to play the media.”

She added: “He asked me what I wanted from him and I just said, ‘I don’t want anything from you, the police are dealing with it.’”

“I came off the phone and he’d made me question myself, like we’d done something wrong. He had gaslighted me. I was in floods of tears.

“This was a police investigation and I was a witness. I felt intimidated and furious he had been given my number. I’m absolutely disgusted he’s got away with this. He’s not even replaced my son’s phone. Meanwhile the trolls have made my life a living hell.

“A lot were Manchester United fans saying my son probably robbed the phone anyway. It was disgusting. My boy has a heart of gold.

“I’m scared to leave the house, always looking over my shoulder. We were made out to be the criminals and Ronaldo the innocent victim.

“It’s been a total nightmare. I was speechless on the phone when I heard he’d got a caution. Talk about a slap in the face and a total misjustice.”