A HOTEL worker was every parents' “worst nightmare” when he picked up a toddler out walking with its mother, York Magistrates' Court heard.

Michal Swatowski, 41, was a complete stranger to the mother and her child, said Martin Butterworth, prosecuting.

He totally ignored the mother as he held the crying two-year-old close to his face and talked to it.

“I was really distressed and physically crying,” the mother told police later. “I didn’t know what he would do next.”

When two men in hi-vis clothing approached, Swatowski put her child down and ran off, the mother's statement said.

The incident happened on the Iron Bridge over Huntington Road on the cycle track between Malton Road and Haxby Road on March 30, 2021.

“For any parent to find a child of theirs being dealt in this way by an absolute stranger must be their worst nightmare,” said district judge Adrian Lower to Swatowski.

“Children are vulnerable. Children deserve to be protected. There is a price to be paid for this kind of behaviour and you are going to pay it.”

He jailed Swatowski for 20 weeks and made him subject indefinitely to a restraining order banning him from contacting the mother and child or going to any street where he believed them to be living.

The 41-year-old, of Arran Place, off Malton Road, York, denied taking a child from the adult with lawful control but was convicted at a trial.

Mr Butterworth said the mother and toddler were out for a walk at 2.30pm on the cycle track on March 30, 2021.

The toddler was slightly behind the mother, who was pushing a pushchair.

Swatowski ran up behind the two, put his arms under the toddler’s and lifted it up.

He held the child so close to his face their noses almost touched and started to talk to it in baby talk.

The mother asked him five or six times to put the child down, but he ignored her.

“He absolutely stank of booze in his breath,” the mother told police later.

District judge Lower called it “bizarre behaviour”.

Mr Butterworth told the court that later the same day, the mother encountered Swatowski again.

He was carrying a OneStop bag and came towards her. He said “sorry sorry if I scared you” and that he hadn’t wanted to spook the child.

She took a photo of him which she later gave to police.

For Swatowski, Eleanor Durdy said of the incident: “While this was no doubt very scary for both mother and child, it was harmless in the physical sense.”

He had bought three cans of cider on the day of the incident and had had some with a friend. But he didn’t have a drink problem.

Nor did he have any mental health issues.

He worked full-time at a city centre hotel.