'The plastic was melting into my skin... it was just going deeper and deeper'

A teenage girl has recounted the horrific and unprovoked assault that left her with severe burns.

Alyssia-Rae Yates described how a boy, possibly as young as 11, recklessly kicked a fire containing molten plastic toward her while she was in a St Helens field, causing excruciating pain.

The 13-year-old rugby player had been relaxing with pals on Blackbrook fields around 6pm on 11 October, before she remembers 'dropping to the ground' and 'screaming' as the plastic 'melted into' her skin, reports the Liverpool Echo.

READ NEXT: Major search for missing man at Dovestone Reservoir enters second day

"My friends were trying to pat it down, but then they realised it wouldn't come off," she said. "So they took me home. In the ambulance, my legs were still red and I was shaking a lot because of the shock of it happening. It was really unexpected, I didn't think anything would happen. It was a big shock.

"I immediately went to the ground and screamed. When I dropped to the floor, the plastic was melting into my skin. It was just going deeper and deeper at that point. It was just going straight through."

Her mother, Laura Hutton, aged 36, called for an ambulance once Alyssia made it home with the aid of a friend. Laura suspects the boy purposely kicked the molten plastic at her daughter.

"As Alyssia has moved to join her friend to get past, the boy has dropped a lighter into the fire and then kicked the fire directly at her," she said.

"At this point, the fire was between two and three feet high. From where the fire has been built, it's a full 360-degree circle. He could have kicked it in any direction, but he's kicked it at her. Then one of the friends, her rugby mates, has carried her part way home. It's only a five-minute journey from where she was to the house.

"I thought she had been playing rugby or something, her legs were black. She was crying and trying to tell me she had been on fire."

Alyssia was taken to a local hospital by ambulance, where the plastic was removed. Merseyside Police stated that no arrests have been made yet, and investigations are ongoing.