[imagesource: YouTube/Alberton Record]

Who picks up someone else’s child and then walks away with it while the mother isn’t looking?

Only two types of people spring to mind: a kidnapper or a person who isn’t thinking straight.

A staff member at the Meyersdal SuperSpar in Gauteng is insisting that he meant no harm when he took a lady’s baby from her trolley while she wasn’t looking on Sunday.

The mother was surveying meat in the fridge section and looked away for mere moments when the staff member walked past, took the eight-month-old baby from the trolley, and casually walked off.

CCTV footage captured everything, with the main action starting from around the 1:30 mark:

The mother posted a now-deleted Facebook post, per The Citizen, about the gut-wrenching moment she realised her child was gone:

“I look up, and she’s gone. I immediately look for her and find her in the arms of this man. I’m able to grab her from him and say, what is he doing with my daughter? Why does he have her?” she wrote.

“He is smiling and laughing, telling me he walked past the trolley and my daughter’s arms were up, so he picked her up. I am frozen and confused. Why is he laughing? Behind me is another staff member – also laughing. I keep saying this is not funny. You don’t touch a child, you don’t take a child. This isn’t a joke, and I don’t find it amusing.”

Later in the mother’s post, she tells how the store’s manager said he spoke to the employee and “advised he didn’t mean any harm”.

Spar spokesperson Kerry Becker said that they are “extremely relieved” that the attempted baby-snatching “was foiled on Sunday”.

She also said that the store’s owner, along with store management, immediately suspended the staff member as a result of the incident and will be taking further action based on the results of the investigation, which is ongoing.

The 43-year-old man was arrested on August 22 for attempted kidnapping, confirmed warrant officer Gerhard Cornelius from Brackendowns SAPS.

[source:citizen]