A thug attacked a toddler after he lost the plot in a supermarket during lockdown - grabbing the youngster and shaking her violently.
James Burgess grabbed the two-year-old and assaulted her in a shop in their hometown earlier this year - and tried to blame his violence on Covid-19.
Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard Burgess, 31, struck in the Co-Operative store in the Ayrshire town of Beith on May 25 this year.
He walked towards the girl aggressively, while shouting and swearing at her, and picked her up by her arms and body.
He then shook her body aggressively, and struggled with her - before putting her under his arm.
Burgess previously pleaded guilty to assaulting the child - "in a manner likely to cause her unnecessary suffering or injury" - and sentencing was deferred for background reports to be prepared.
Burgess claimed to social workers that he had stopped taking his antidepressant medication around the time of the offence, which affected his behaviour.
He told them that he was worried about Covid on the day in question, which was during the first lockdown, fearing the child would touch things in the shop and get in the way of other shoppers as she repeatedly walked away from him.
And he said to them that staff should not have let him into the store due to the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Scots.
Burgess, who has previous convictions for resisting arrest and assault to injury, could have been caged for up to a year for the offence when he returned to the dock at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on Tuesday to be sentenced.
But he was spared prison and instead placed on a Community Payback Order (CPO).
The CPO will see him having to complete 120 hours' unpaid work in the same period, reduced from 150 hours' as he admitted his guilt.
