HORROR CCTV footage has captured the shockng moment a supermarket worker snatched a woman’s baby from her trolley after the mum turned her back for a second.
The chilling video shows a man wearing a butcher’s apron calmly picking up the eight-month-old baby and walking away with her.
In every parent’s worst nightmare, the mother turns back and – in a panic – realises her baby is gone.
Unable to reach into the chilled meat counter, the mum placed her baby daughter wearing a white romper suit safely in the trolley’s child seat.
The unhinged employee, who worked as a butcher’s assistant, places the baby over his left shoulder and walks away from the distracted mum, who had bent down to pick up some meat from the freezer.
In the clip, the man tries to hide behind a shopping aisle, but the mum furiously confronts him.
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Screaming at the man, she angrily asks him what he was doing, before snatching her baby back.
The shocking clip was taken from the security cameras of a SuperSpar supermarket in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Shaken mum-of-two Danielle Wolff shared the clip of the CCTV from the store’s security office on her Facebook, and gave her account of what happened.
She said: “I have her in my arms and when I get to the meat section I place her in the trolley to free my hands and when I find what I’m looking for I bend down.
“Within an instant, a stranger is seen in the video taking my daughter. 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 he is doing with my daughter? Why does he have her? He is smiling and laughing and I say it isn’t a joke and it’s not amusing.
“He tells 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? I tell him it’s not funny.
“You don’t touch a child, you don’t take a child. I am unsure what to do next and the man again approaches me to ‘demonstrate’ what my daughter was doing.
Within an instant, a stranger is seen in the video taking my daughter. I look up and she’s gone
Danielle Wolff
“He said she wanted to go with him and I am so angry, shocked, hysterical and I’m shouting ‘where were you taking her? What were you going to do with her?'” she said.
Danielle frantically called her husband Bradley who rushed to the supermarket and after the couple reviewed the CCTV footage, they reported the case of attempted baby snatching to police.
The South African Police Service were called and arrested the member of staff.
A spokesman for SuperSpar said: “We have provided the CCTV footage to the police and management are fully co-operating with the authorities in their investigation.
“We are extremely relieved a reported case of baby snatching was foiled on Sunday and we can confirm we immediately decided to suspend one member of staff.”
He went on: “We will take further action based on the results of the ongoing investigation and the SPAR group is reaching out to the family to offer any help they need including counselling.
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“The SPAR group adopts a zero-tolerance approach to crime and will ensure the strongest possible consequences to those who commit crimes in our stores to ensure customer safety.”
South African Police warrant officer Gerhad Cornellius confirmed a case of attempted baby-snatching was under investigation and it was too early to comment further.
