Dr Alexander Waters, 45, pinched and pushed the six-year-old who was wrecking a bedroom with another child while the off-duty medic was looking after them.

The consultant dermatologist faced being struck off over the incident in which he said he tried to stop the boy from hurting himself in a frenzy of destruction.

Sheriff Thomas Ward gave Dr Waters an absolute discharge.

He said: “I don’t know why the Crown bring these cases to court without dealing with them in different ways.”

The doctor was suspended on full pay at Crosshouse Hospital by NHS Ayrshire and Arran the day after he left police cells after the incident in December 2018.

He told Kilmarnock Sheriff Court: “I love my job. If I am found guilty of an assault against a child I think it unlikely I would ever practise again as a doctor.”

He had been looking after a boy and girl at a house in Fenwick, Ayrshire, when he found them ripping up documents in a room and putting items under a running tap.

The boy would not stop attacking him.

Dr Waters said: “I had suffered injuries and I pinched the boy on the buttock in the hope that he would stop. I’d been the victim of a sustained attack for several minutes and thought it was reasonable force. I gave him a second pinch.”

The following day the boy misbehaved again. Dr Waters pushed him and he fell and hurt himself.

Stuart McMillan, prosecuting, said the doctor could have removed himself from the situation and made a “gross overreaction”.

Sheriff Ward said Dr Waters’ actions “were unjustified and beyond reasonable chastisement”.

But he added: “I do not know why the Crown bring these charges. I’m not suggesting the assault of a child is not serious. This has no doubt been a difficult time for you but at the same time it seems to me you did act in the way described and you simply lost your temper. People do act in that way but they very seldom end up in court.”

A spokeswoman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “We note the decision of the sheriff.”