A SHOCKED mother told how her father and 17-week-old baby were drenched with muck when a pipe burst as they stood outside a shop in Bournemouth town centre.

Cleaner Stephanie Lovell, who was shopping in Oasis, in Old Christchurch Road, told of her horror when her 49-year-old father Stephen Lovell rushed into the store to tell her a pipe outside the store had blasted him and her son Thomas with a jet of dirt. The concerned 27-year-old, of Columbia Road, in Ensbury Park, in Bournemouth, took her muck-splattered son out of his pushchair, stripped him, cleaned him with baby wipes and then immediately took him to Bournemouth Hospital for a check up.

“It looked like someone had thrown a drink over them,” Miss Lovell said.

“It was all over their faces and in their hair and the pushchair was ruined.

“Dad said he was standing about 1ft away from the pipe and was about to feed Thomas a bottle when the stuff gushed out of the pipe.

“Now anytime dad goes near him Thomas starts crying. I’m just really upset.

“You don’t expect that kind of thing to happen.

“I just don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

Digby Chambers Countryside Estate Management, which is now part of Labyrinth Properties Ltd, is responsible for the maintenance of the common parts of the flats above the shop, including the pipework.

However, the company explained that the burst pipe, which it said was an overflow pipe, was not their responsibility and was under the specific control of the landlord in the flat above the shop.

It added that it has advised the landlord there is a problem.