Child Abuse

[mcgillianaire]

A man in Manchester was arrested last night and given an official police caution for slapping his 13-year-old daughter (the first time he had ever physically hit her). He hit her after she banged a neighbour's window. Immediately afterwards the daughter called the police. The father has quit his football coaching and community work because the caution could prevent him working with vulnerable children. The daughter has since apologised for getting her father in trouble and agreed she deserved the slap...

[Poll #1241699]

Comments

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Where would you draw the line?

[lctrc-gtr-dde.livejournal.com]

There is no line. There are far too many facotrs to define a 'line'. It needs to be examined on a case by case basis.

In New Zealand "Assault means the act of intentionally applying or attempting to apply force to the person of another, directly or indirectly, or threatening by any act or gesture to apply such force to the person of another, if the person making the threat has, or causes the other to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; and to assault has a corresponding meaning."

After the fact, the police and courts system can hopefully determine if it was assault or not.

Before the fact, you can only have 'rules of thumb' (not necesarily literally).

For example, violence is probably the wrong path. If volunatrily for whatever reason (punishment for example) or out of anger or frustration you carry out an act that is primarily designed to injure or cause pain (as opposed to say, rugby tackling a child to prevent her from bieng hit by a bus), then that's probably the wrong path. However just because it's the wrong path doesn't mean it should be illegal - it may however be reported to the police who can proceed as they wish.

I would say use of any force that is greater than which is available to the victim/recipient, is cause for concern.