Ear-Flick Dad on Trial for Assault Charges

From Christchurch Court News,

Media access has been blocked for all evidence at the depositions hearing of child assault charges against a Christchurch professional musician, James Louis Mason.

The preliminary hearing was held before Caroline Kellaway and Percy Acton-Adams, Justices of the Peace, in the Christchurch District Court today, and Mason was committed for trial.

But the JPs refused a radio application for recording the evidence, and another media application for in-court photography.

When Mason’s defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger indicated that the evidence of all four prosecution witnesses would be handed to the JPs in written form, the eight reporters present made a joint application to see the briefs of evidence.

Miss Bulger opposed the application because she would have wanted the opportunity to have some sections of the evidence suppressed, and the JPs decided to decline the application.

Mason, 49, has been charged with assaulting his two sons aged two and four, and the case is attracting media attention because it may be a test of the anti-smacking laws.

Will they find him guilty?  I don't think so, it would just reinforce in the minds of New Zealanders that the law is bad, invasive and pointless.  I think they'll let him off (even though he has broken the law), let's wait and see.

Father sentenced to nine months supervision for smacks

This from The Dominion Post | Thursday, 22 November 2007

"A father who spanked his eight-year-old son on the bottom three times for misbehaving at school is one of the first to be convicted of assault under the law against smacking..." (Click here to read the rest of the article)

This is a bit of a catch 22. While I stand by the loving smack as an effective, positive and even necessary tool for discipline of children by their parents, I am not happy at the prospect of parents smacking/hitting their children out of anger, frustration and annoyance.

However, we members of the public have to be very careful before jumping to conclusions. We know that the media loves to saturate their articles with emotive, exagerated terms and descriptions.

You can't have a whole lot of respect for a mother who would dob her own husband into the police for going just a little bit over the top. Parents don't always get it right, but just because they slip up as in a case like this, I do not believe that it calls for police intervention.

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David has got it right:

"Absolute Madness. I was raised on a farm in northland - I know if my father had given me a "time out" i would not have given a S**t. Nothing like a good couple of licks with the stock stick to make you think that shooting the neighbours cows with a slug gun is a really bad idea. Frankly I think it is quite pathetic watching parents 'negotiate' with their totally undisciplined children in the supermarket. I think this legislation should be tossed out the door. How hard is it to say "you are allowed to smack you child on the bum, but your not allowed to punch them in the face" on paper?"

comment on this article: Man pleads guilty to assault for smacking a child, 22 November 2007