A child abuser who bit a baby in the face and inflicted a "significant" injury has avoided jail.
Jordan Siveright left the seven-month-old girl screaming in pain with a vivid mark on her cheek that doctors suspected was caused by human teeth.
He was fined £500, ordered to pay £500 compensation, put on supervision for a year and given 200 hours unpaid work.
Siveright, 27, had been looking after the child but was rushing to get ready for a football match.
He claimed he was carrying items in one hand and the baby in the other when she moved and hit her head off a banister.
But social workers alerted medics after suspecting the circular, solid mark matched "known bitemarks" from cases seen before.
Siveright told Kilmarnock Sheriff Court: "She hit her face off the banister," adding the baby was crying and he rushed to get a cloth for the injury then told his mother.
Flora Napier, prosecuting, said the child suffered a "significant injury" but had not been given medical attention.
Ms Napier asked Siveright: "Why did you not take her to A&E?"
He replied: "My Mum is first aid trained, I'd lost my best friend through a bump on the head and put full trust in my mum."
But the court heard the bitemark developed into a serious bruise. A medical report stated the injury was caused by "a human bite or something that mimicked the effect of upper and lower teeth".
Scott McLatchie, defending, said: "Jordan Siveright is distraught at the allegation he would ever intentionally hurt the child."
Siveright denied assaulting and injuring the child by biting her on the head at an address in Kilmarnock, where he had been caring for the baby, in September 2019.
But Sheriff Michael Hanlon found him guilty and said a photo of the injury along with expert medical evidence about the human bite marks backed his decision.
Sheriff Hanlon added: "It seems strange to me that neither the accused's mother or father would consider it might have been caused by a bite. I treated their evidence with caution.”
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