/ 9 September 2009

Australian toddler ‘held ransom’ for pizza

An Australian fast food delivery man tried to hold a
four-year-old boy hostage as a row over a pizza supreme turned into a Mexicana stand-off, it was reported Wednesday.

The driver seized Darwin woman Lisa Paardekooper’s nephew Cain when she refused to pay for the pizza because it was more than an hour late, she told the Northern Territory News.

“He said give me the pizza back or the money,” Paardekooper said. “He stuck his hand through the gate and grabbed Cain.”

Paardekooper said the driver eventually let the boy go when she raised her fist to him.

The newspaper said police investigated the incident, which occurred last Saturday. The boy’s mother, Cindy, said the way the driver treated her child was unacceptable.

“He grabbed my son, four years old …. as ransom for the pizza.

Grabbing a child, that’s child abuse, that’s assault,” she said.

The delivery driver’s employer told the newspaper that the driver still had his job.

“I can’t believe he intended to harm the child,” restaurant manager Tessie Muscat Couturier said. – AFP