A DAD denies handing over a ‘white plastic bottle’ to an alleged co-conspirator in a Worcester pub carpark hours before an acid attack on his three-year-old son.

The father of the boy squirted with sulphuric acid told a jury he paid cash to co-defendant Jabar Paktia for surveillance on his family, not an attack. In his second day giving evidence at Worcester Crown Court the 40-year-old Afghan repeatedly denied knowing Adam Cech, Jan Dudi and Norbert Pulko, the men captured on CCTV in Home Bargains on July 21 last year when his son suffered chemical burns. CCTV shows Cech holding an object in his hand as he squirts something on the boy.

The father accepted paying fellow Afghan Paktia £680 for surveillance on the evening of July 13 last year. He said he paid the money after Paktia, 42, told him his wife had been followed into a supermarket, to school and to her Worcester home and appeared to be ‘using some kind of drug’ or ‘a very strong medicine’ so ‘she did not seem normal’. Earlier that day Saied Hussini, Norbert Pulko and Martina Badiova were photographed ‘loitering’ outside a Worcester school in what the prosecution say was an aborted mission to attack the same three-year-old with acid. However, the father said he did not know they had been there. The father said Paktia borrowed his car to pick up Saied Hussini from Worcester that afternoon but disputed that Paktia was acting under his instruction or that Hussini had stayed with him in his flat that night.

He told the jury that he had seen Badiova a BMW outside his home on July 14 last year and that Hussini told him she worked for social services.

The father said calls from his mobile phone to Pulko’s phone were made by Jabar Paktia.

He said calls between him and Paktia on July 20 last year were to discuss a planned meeting in Worcester the following day with Badiova to show her ‘family documents’ connected to his ongoing custody battle with his estranged wife and to pay her £600.

He said Paktia told him to meet Badiova at a Costa Coffee on the A449 on July 21, the day of the alleged acid attack. However, he could not find the coffee shop and called Paktia who told him to drive to the Blackpole Inn in Worcester instead.

The court heard that the father arrived there at around 10.20am, less than four hours before the acid attack at 2.16pm.

He said ‘a white boy’ came up to his car and told him to ‘give him the money’ but that he did not do so because ‘I did not know him’. He had expected to meet Badiova and described himself as 'very upset' he had not been able to meet her.

Andrew Copeland, for Adam Cech, said: “If it was suggested to you that it was Norbert Pulko, your co-defendant (who approached the car) what would you say?”

The father answered that he did not remember.

“Did you give Norbert Pulko a small white plastic bottle?”

“Never, no” replied the father.

The father, a former asylum seeker, accepted paying Paktia £500 in Birmingham that day. He said he understood that Paktia was going to use this money to pay private investigators.

Melanie Simpson, for Pulko, said: “I suggest you had met Mr Pulko before this trial. What do you say about that?”

“No I did not meet him” said the father.

Miss Simpson said the father had given Pulko £300 in the carpark of the Blackpole Inn and a further £300 in Rookery Road, Soho, Birmingham between 5.30pm and 6pm on July 21 last year. The father said he only ever gave money to Paktia and denied that he had travelled 'in convoy' with Pulko on July 10 or had met with Pulko, Paktia and Hussini on July 11.

The trial continues.