An Aberdeenshire dad who previously fell asleep on top of his daughter has appeared back in court after assaulting his two-year-old son at a local swimming pool.
The man, who has not been named to protect the identity of his children, appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and admitted striking the child – telling the court: “I just lost my temper.”
He claimed his two-year-old son had thrown a pair of swimming goggles at his face and cut his nose.
The man then removed the child from the pool and smacked him four times.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of assaulting the child at the swimming pool in June 2018.
It comes just days after a separate court appearance for the man regarding another offence involving his children.
Man injured daughter when he fell asleep
It was stated that he had drank so much that he ended up falling asleep on top of the girl’s legs and could not be roused as the distressed youngsters frantically tried to wake him and lift him off.
Despite the disturbing incident – which the trapped girl filmed on her mobile phone – the 42-year-old insisted to a sheriff he did not have an alcohol problem, blaming the offence on lockdown stress.
The children later told their mother what had happened and the matter was reported to the police.
The girl was left with bruising to her legs, the court was told.
‘I did lose my temper’
In relation to the incident at the swimming pool, fiscal depute Kiril Bonavino told the court the man had taken his two children to an Aberdeen swimming baths before removing them from the water and assaulting the boy.
He smacked the boy four times on his bare bottom within a changing cubicle, Mr Bonavino said.
The man’s daughter, who later reported the incident to the children’s mother, stated that she remembered her brother hitting their dad with a pair of swimming goggles in his face, which made him “angry”.
Representing himself, the man stated that he didn’t consider the offence a child protection matter but that it was only reported “to get to me during divorce proceedings”.
He added: “If it had been a genuine child protection matter it would have been reported at the time.
“But I did lose my temper at the swimming pool – my son hit me across the face with the goggles and cut my nose.
“It was still not right to hit him, but I had just lost my temper at that moment in time.”
He added that he did not routinely hit his children and described it as a “one-off event”.
Sheriff Lesley Johnston told the man that a social work report into the matter showed that he was “genuinely remorseful” and had a “high level of insight” in relation to his behaviour.
She sentenced the man to a community payback order with supervision for 12 months.
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