Last week, a Canadian mother and father who spanked their 14-year-old daughter with a hockey stick and a jump rope were convicted of assault with a weapon. After finding out that the teen had sent nude pictures to someone on the internet, the parents reportedly gave her the choice of being grounded or being spanked. She chose a spanking.
The next day, she went to school with bruises and cuts, which her friends reported.
“The testimony of the father regarding the injuries to his to his daughter suggests that he is downplaying the seriousness of events that took place in the garage of his home,” Judge Edmond de Walle reportedly wrote in a ruling posted earlier this month. “At the very least the father’s evidence leads me to conclude that he gave little thought, if any, to the possible injuries suffered by his daughter.”
The Toronto Sun reports:
The father testified during the trial that he had no clue that the law doesn’t allow corporal punishment or that he might be breaking the law when he spanked his daughter…
De Walle found the teen could not have consented to such a punishment given the amount of force applied, the use of weapons and seriousness of the assault.
He agreed that any reasonable parent would be concerned about their teen sending nude pictures, but to suggest that responding to such acts with a spanking would educate the girl is simply not believable or acceptable.
“The parents took no educative or corrective steps by seeking out expert help or any other assistance,” de Walle continued. “Their actions were solely punitive and not corrective. In my view, the actions of the parents were also degrading.”
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