Giles Coren’s Twitter tirade at neighbour's boy for playing drum kit

Restaurant critic and broadcaster Giles Coren threatened to kill and sexually abuse a neighbour's son for playing a drum kit too loudly in an ill-judged joke.

Tweeting from his Kentish Town home, Coren, 40, posted: "Next door have brought their 12-year-old son a drum kit. For f**k's sake! Do I kill him then burn it? Or do I f**k him, then kill him then burn it?" He followed this with: "Child for sale, charred and partially f**ked. Has own drum kit."

Vivienne Pattison, the director of watchdog Mediawatch UK today condemned the post as being in "very bad taste".

The columnist and son of humourist Alan Coren later posted a slight retraction but not before his friends had added encouraging comments. Coren posted: "Oh hell's bells. Look, can I just say I didn't kill the kid, or have sex with him. And anyway he's not real. And I live in Vienna."

When asked whether he had made the postings, Coren said: "Yes but I don't want to say anything about it." His neighbour confirmed she had recently bought her son a drum kit but said she had not seen Coren's Twitter post and did not want to comment on it.

Coren, who writes a column for The Times, has previously been mocked for sending expletive-filled emails to staff for changing words in his articles.