A 15-YEAR-OLD boy has been subjected to abuse on social media after being wrongly identified as the teenager who sent a racist tweet to an England footballer.

Just after an outrageously offensive tweet was sent to centre forward Danny Welbeck, the image on the offending Twitter user’s account was changed to that of Ronan Clancy from Durrington.

As a result of the message being retweeted thousands of times, and people taking screen shots of it and passing it onto others, Ronan’s face is now widely associated with the racist message which has prompted the abuse.

His father David said Ronan initially even got into trouble at his school Avon Valley College, over the issue. His two older sisters are also getting abused on social media.

Ronan’s father David said: “The tweet was over six weeks ago and messages are still being sent.

“Anyone can see his photo and think it’s him who is racist.”

A particularly disturbing image has appeared on social media labelled ‘official picture from prison’ which copies in the Twitter handle of the teen who sent the racist tweet and shows Ronan’s head superimposed on the body of a person being sexually assaulted.

Mr Clancy said: “We are getting people ringing us up saying: ‘Have you seen this or that with Ronan’s picture on?’ We are concerned because a different photo of Ronan is now being used – they know his name and are accessing his photos from Facebook.

"Because it’s football-related and Ronan has played academy and local football, we are worried people could believe Ronan is to blame.”

The teen who sent the tweet on March 9 was given a youth caution by police.

Mr Clancy said: “I think the boy who sent the message panicked when he saw people getting really angry with what he said and he realised he had made a mistake so he thought that using a photo of Ronan was an easy way out of it. “

"He might have thought it was a joke and not realised how far it would go.”

Ronan says he has received an apology from the boy.

Mr Clancy wants Twitter to require user names to include part of the person’s real name.

* While the Twitter account was closed the same day, a fake account has been set up by someone wishing to capitalise on the controversy in order to gain thousands of followers