Man accused of assaulting children

File photo / NZ Herald

An east Auckland man accused of punching children in the face and assaulting another with an air gun has appeared in the Auckland District Court this morning.

The 27-year-old is facing 19 charges of assaulting four children under the age of 10 between January 2011 and November 2013.

The man is accused of suffocating a 7-year-old child, assaulting him using an airgun as a weapon, punching him in the face, kicking him to the stomach, bottom and hips, throwing an egg at his head and multiple incidents of hair pulling.

The youngest of the man's alleged victims was a child aged less than one-year-old at the time of the offending, according to police charge sheets

The Point England man is alleged to have assaulted the infant by by placing a pillow on his face and punching him.

Another of the man's alleged victims, aged 6 at the time police say the offending took place, was allegedly thrown off a couch by the man.

He is also alleged to have hit the child in the face, assaulted him using a wooden spoon as a weapon, twisted his nose until it bled and kicked him in the back.

Police described the alleged offending against another victim, a 9-year-old boy, as "a major departure from the standard of care to be expected of a reasonable person".

The man is next due to appear in court in March.