BAINBRIDGE, Ga. (WCTV) - The father of a child allegedly beaten at a Bainbridge daycare is speaking out for the first time since the arrest of a worker at Little Blessings Child Care.

Cory Weeks said the incident happened on his son’s first day at the learning center.

He said he was first told another child hit his kid, but surveillance video allegedly shows daycare worker Yvette Thurston roughly handling and shoving the one-year-old.

“If you’re given an incident report or you received a call from a daycare facility or that something happened, ask to see exactly how it happened. Because we were lied to on how it happened. And I almost accepted that,” he said.

Thurston was arrested on Aug. 11 and is charged with first-degree aggravated battery and three counts of first-degree child abuse, according to police.

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Weeks said he watched the surveillance video himself.

“To watch it, it was concerning,” he said. “Doing that to someone who can’t even talk back, it was his first day, he had never been away from me and his mom.”

The state issued an emergency closure order for the facility, and Little Blessings did not appeal the order.

The center will be closed until Sept. 21.

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