A MAN who has now admitted trying to snatch a two-year-old girl from a pram in a Basingstoke park will face no more time behind bars.

Mohamed Jarboui was standing trial having pleaded not guilty to attempting to abduct the girl from a pram in Eastrop Park in February, when he changed his plea to guilty on Wednesday.

Jarboui's barrister Rupert Hallowes told Winchester Crown Court that it had "dawned upon him slowly that his behaviour that day was inappropriate", the BBC reports.

Sentencing the 51-year-old this afternoon, Recorder Adam Feest QC gave him a ten-month prison sentence. But because of time he has already spent in custody, he said the defendant will be released today (Wednesday).

He must abide by any conditions placed on him by the probation service.

As previously reported, the mother of the girl had to fight off Jarboui with her bare fists as he attempted to abduct the girl as they walked in Eastrop Park in February, Winchester Crown Court heard this week.

The child’s 27-year-old mother said she started feeling ‘sick’ as the Libyan kept harassing her before the attempted abduction and ‘there was nobody around’ in the park.

Jarboui, of New Street, was standing trial at Winchester Crown Court when he dramatically changed his plea to guilty on the second day.

Jurors had been told the toddler has ‘significant health issues’ and Jarboui, 51, tried to pick the girl up under her armpits but failed to rip her out as she was strapped in.

The attempted abduction happened just after 3.30pm on February 4 this year at Eastrop Park.

The mother of the child, who can’t be named for legal reasons, had told the court: “I was shaking, I was sweating, I couldn’t breathe, I felt sick to my stomach.”

At Winchester Crown Court, prosecutor Edward Elton said Jarboui was caught three days later after police scoured CCTV and claimed he was ‘playing’ with the child.

The court heard how the mother noticed Jarboui several times as she walked through Basingstoke before he came over, knelt down and made ‘cooing noises’ to the child.

She said: “He came up the right hand side of the pram and kneeled down at my daughter and started making all these cooing, babbling noises.

“He had his left hand on the latch... that’s when the sick feeling started.

“He touched her face and I said ‘please don’t touch her’ because obviously my daughter is of a high risk.

“He said sorry and I thought he was going from that point.”

She saw Jarboui grab the handles of the pram before he left them alone.

She said: “I started to have a really sick feeling. I started to look around and I was thinking there’s no one around me, the businesses are all shut.”

He returned, spoke Arabic to the child, then grabbed the child’s arm as he tried to abduct her.

The woman, from Basingstoke, said: “He stood over the pram and he stopped us, he started grabbing my daughter’s right arm.

“I told him to stop dragging her like that and the next minute he put his hands under her arm pits.

“I just hit him, I think I had my left hand on the left hand side of the pram... I screamed at him saying ‘let go of my daughter’.

“He just dropped her, she was still in the pram, he couldn’t get her out, then he came up to her right hand side... pushing me with his hip to get me away.

“He was working out different ways to get her out of the pram and then when he couldn’t he just tried taking the whole pram and me with it.

“I was going through all these emotions... I was shaking, I was sweating, I couldn’t breathe, I felt sick to my stomach.”

Mr Elton said: “[Jarboui] said he had been interacting with the child in what was a perfectly acceptable way in his culture.

“[He said] he had no intention of taking the child away from her mother... he said he was playing with the child in a normal way.”

The mother, who called her husband after the incident, told police when she first saw Jarboui he ‘seemed very proud of himself... like he was getting himself ready for something’.