A BALSALL Common father who assaulted and ill-treated his young son by leaving him for eight hours in pub bar without feeding or changing him has escaped being jailed.
Instead Michael Rich was given a suspended prison sentence.
Rich, 24, of Cameo Court, Balsall Common, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to two charges of cruelty to his 22-month-old son Kyle in November last year.
Glyn Samuel, prosecuting, said the first offence related to Rich slapping Kyle to the face and grabbing him aggressively.
He then caused him unnecessary suffering by swearing at him and confining him in the bar of the Porridge Pot pub at Longbridge Manor, Warwick, for at least eight hours without food or a change of nappy.
Kyle was 'completely soaked' when he was seen by the police after Rich left the pub.
Mr Samuel said Rich went to the pub at just after one in the afternoon, and by the early evening customers were very concerned that there was a young child in the bar.
At 8.30pm Rich was heard shouting at Kyle and forcibly grabbing him before giving him a back-handed slap across the face.
Rich and two friends later got into a car which Rich drove off the car park. He was stopped by police and a breath test showed he was almost three times the legal alcohol limit.
Magistrates have since given him an 18-month community order for driving with excess alcohol and fined him £500 for being drunk in charge of a child, added Mr Samuel.
Lee Marklew, defending, said: "In many ways this unpleasant offence may be the making of him."
He added Rich had been heavily into drugs and alcohol, but in November was jailed for dangerous driving, and since then social workers said there had been a "miraculous change" in him.
Rich was sentenced to 51 weeks in prison suspended for 12 months and was given two years supervision with a condition that he attends a Think First programme.
