Claims that boiling water were thrown at ducks by the owner of Helston's boating lake cafe have been refuted as "wholly inaccurate and wholly untrue."

The RSPCA has now been informed of the allegations made on Facebook against the owner of the Lakeside Cafe at Coronation Park, in which customer Eve Busby claimed: "Cannot believe I witnessed the owner, John, throwing jugs of scalding, steaming hot water at ducks, geese and swans and kicking them back in to the water.

"When I confronted him, he laughed and said, 'It's a tried and tested method!' Shocking! You will be hearing from the RSPCA as promised."

However, cafe owner John Leech has vehemently denied these version of events, saying that in fact he was pouring water on the ground to get rid of duck mess before it hardened.

Mr Leech told the Packet: "What I'm supposed to have done is wholly inaccurate and wholly untrue.

"At no point was any duck hurt. It [the water] was not aimed at the ducks. No ducks or swans were attacked in any way and never will be on my watch."

He added that he and staff tried to keep the patio area in front of the cafe as clean as possible and that night had been forced to power wash the entire area due to the amount of mess there.

But he said: "As far as indiscriminately throwing hot water, I would refute that most strongly."

However, Eve's mum Karina Moss, who lives in Helston and had been at the cafe with her daughter, claimed to the Packet: "He threw it over them. What a terrible thing to do to birds; awful."

She said had been feeding the ducks the crusts from her bacon sandwich when Mr Leech had told her: "Please don't throw the bread down."

She added that she had stopped and later walked down to the lake's edge where she placed the rest of the crusts.

Karina said: "He went over and threw a jug of water. When I looked there was steam coming out."

Mr Leech said it was "always difficult" when he had to ask people to stop feeding the birds at the entrance to the cafe, saying that feeding the ducks was "a great experience and part of the whole lakeside experience."

But he pointed out that the food "went in one end and comes out the other" and that having mess immediately outside the cafe was unhygienic.

With regards to the allegation that he was "kicking" the birds, Mr Leech claimed that he in fact "approached it from behind and gently pushed it away with my foot," which was the best method for moving aggressive species such as geese and swans.

Mr Leech said he actually took the welfare of the birds at the lake very seriously, recently pushing two boats together on one of the islands and adding hay bales for the swans to nest in - the result being that at the end of last week two cygnets were hatched.

"The wildlife is a vitally important part of my business," he added.