Man in court accused of punching baby in supermarket

A man is on trial accused of punching a newborn baby in a supermarket.

David Hardy, 63, is accused of striking the five-day-old baby girl at a Tesco store in Baguely in September this year.

Mr Hardy, from Baguley, has claimed he thought the baby was a doll. He denies common assault.

The baby suffered a red mark to her face, but was not seriously injured in the incident.

The prosecution has outlined its case to the court and the first witness, the baby’s mother Amy Duckers, is on the witness stand, giving evidence from behind a screen.

Ms Duckers said she arrived at Tesco on Altrincham Road in Baguley on Monday September 5 with her partner, seven-year daughter Libby and five-day-old baby, Elsie.

Baby Elsie was asleep under a blanket in a car seat which was perched on a trolley which she was pushing down the biscuit aisle when the incident happened, Ms Duckers told the court.

Ms Duckers sobs as she tells the court details of the incident. She described how she saw a neighbour called Julie who works in Tesco who wanted to look at her ‘beautiful baby’.

Julie then called over another colleague, who also work at Tesco, who came over with her partner, the defendant, the court is told.

“He’s rushed over punched her in the face, in the head,” said Ms Duckers, and she begins to cry.

Ms Duckers said she had never seen the man nor his partner before. “He’s rushed over. He didn’t even look at my pram. He’s kind of lashed out,” she said.

Ms Duckers said the defendant had punched her baby daughter with a ‘clenched fist’.

The defendant ‘didn’t even say anything’ during the assault and her baby woke and ‘instantly cried out’, she added.

She described her older daughter, who had been hanging onto the rear of the trolley, as ‘hysterical’.

“I have just gone in complete shock and Julie has looked at me and was like ‘has this just happened? Did that actually just happen?’ I can’t even tell you how I felt. I just went numb. I didn’t know what had just happened myself,” Ms Duckers told the court.

Ms Duckers described how her older daughter ‘started screaming hysterically’, and was saying ‘is she going to die?’

She tells the court she asked the defendant ‘why have you just done that? and he replied ‘I didn’t.’

The witness continues that she and Julie ‘were arguing with him’.

Ms Duckers described how her partner, who had been shopping for coffee in another aisle, returned, removed the baby’s hat to reveal ‘a fist mark on her forehead’.

The defendant ‘kind of looked like he was in shock’ at the time of the incident, said Ms Duckers.

“It was really bizarre how he had approached without actually saying a word and then how he struck out without him looking in the pram to see what was in the car seat,” said Ms Duckers.