Man fined for hitting 1-y-o child

A 63-YEAR-OLD man who hit a one-and-a-half year old child in Toowoomba’s CBD has appeared in the city’s Magistrates Court on a charge of assault.

The man had gone to the Milne Bay Aquatic Centre with his carer, the grandmother of the boy and his siblings, on July 4, last year, the court heard.

He had been carrying the crying child but put him down on a desk before yelling at him to “shut up”, police prosecutor Rowan Brewster-Webb told the court.

He had then smacked the child on the head before picking him up and shaking him, then hitting his arms and legs, he said.

Police told of the incident viewed the centre’s CCTV footage before contacting the child’s parents who had been told of the incident, the court heard.

The man, who is not named so as to protect the identity of the children, told police he had only play hit the child to calm him.

The child was not injured, Mr Brewster-Webb said.

The man pleaded guilty to the charge of common assault.

His solicitor Alanna O’Halloran told the court her client had migrated to Australia when a child and put his actions down to “generational and cultural differences”.

His own children were grown adults and it had been a long time since her client had cared for young children, she said.

However, her client had since done a parenting course and the parents of the child involved had no issues with him having contact with their son, Ms O’Halloran submitted.

Magistrate Graham Lee noted the man had no criminal history and ordered the conviction not be recorded but fined him $400.