Cruel father spared jail after repenting over dangling his baby by one leg from tower block roof

The father was guilty of 'grossly violating his basic parental responsibilities' to obtaining eye-catching social media scenes, according to the Investigative Committee, which examines serious criminal cases. 

He 'fully admitted his guilt and repented' for two stunts involving his baby which caused shock because of the danger he put his child in, Zelenogorsky magistrates court was told. 

A tearful appeal from his wife Kristina, 23, came before businessman Afanasayev was sentenced to unpaid community work. 

Shaking with fear and unable to stand, she told the magistrate: 'I beg you do not punish Roman severely.'

In one shocking image he was shown standing on the edge of an nine-storey apartment block roof, clutching the upside down baby - then aged three months - by her left foot with his outstretched hand.

He posted the image on social media with the caption: 'Look at this world from a different angle.'

In another, four months later, he sped off in his BMW to drive at 70 kilometres an hour while dangling the helpless child out of the driver's window.

The couple have a second child, now aged two months. 

He told the court: 'I would like to ask my parents, my daughters, my relatives for forgiveness.' He denied the stunts were a ploy to get more followers on his social media.

'Everyone says that I wanted to get some PR at the expense of my children - no way,' he said. 

He boasted: 'I'm in great physical shape, so I realised that if I go to the edge and hold the child on my outstretched hand, then there would be no risk. 

'I was preparing for a month - I held a 16-kilogram weight in my outstretched hand to be safe. The shoot was to catch the moment, just like home video.'

He told to the court: 'If I knew that my daughter was in the least danger, I would never have done this. But I will not repeat such actions anymore.'

The stunt lasted just five seconds, he said. 

Afanasyev could have been jailed for three years but the magistrate accepted he was an otherwise good father who regretted his actions. 

'My wife and I were afraid that our child would be taken away from us,' he admitted after the court case.

'To be honest, we even began to register guardianship for the grandparents, but thank God, children's officials came to inspect us and realised that we were a normal family.'

At the time, the father - labelled 'sick' and an 'insane fool' by social media commentators - claimed he is raising his daughter to 'fear nothing' - like him - and that this was part of her training. In court, he admitted the child was asleep when he held her upside down over the precipice. 

Earlier he had claimed he posed with a doll but this was exposed as a lie. 

His friend Nikita Abashev said: 'He just wants to raise his children so they will be like him.

'So from childhood, he teaches them to fear nothing.'

Afanasyev is fond of extreme stunts. In other images he hangs on a rope between the banks of a river, climbs on road signs, and hangs in the air, holding on to a balcony railing.