Mum charged over wooden spoon smack
12:00 AEST Tue Oct 20 20092
By Matt Bachl, ninemsn
A Victorian mother of-three was charged with assault for allowing her partner to smack her 12-year-old son with a wooden spoon.
It follows another case in Victoria last week where a woman was warned she would be charged with assault after she disciplined her child with a wooden spoon.
Ninemsn has since learnt police took a 33-year-old Craigieburn woman to court over the discipline of her child.
The woman and her partner, who she married in March this year, faced Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court last Wednesday over the October 19, 2008 incident.
Police documents obtained by ninemsn show the woman was charged with intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury, unlawful assault and assault with a weapon.
Her partner was charged with intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury, aggravated assault, unlawful assault and assault with an instrument.
The woman, who cannot be identified, told ninemsn her son was punished because he became angry after not getting an Xbox 360 during a shopping trip.
"He was back-chatting, bossing his brothers — who are two and five — around and shoving them as well as telling us what to do," she said.
The woman said she asked her partner to "get the wooden spoon and smack him".
The woman said he hit the boy on his left arm — the first time the spoon had been used to hit someone — and that there was only a red mark left behind.
"That was about 11am and when I went to take him lunch at about 12.30 he was gone — he’d jumped out the window," the woman told ninemsn.
The boy had fled to his grandmother’s house where he stayed for nine weeks. Police were notified of the incident by the grandmother.
The woman's partner was charged on December 20, 2008 while she was charged June 26 this year — six months later.
The woman said the boy's grandmother — her mother — kept pushing for police intervention and that is why she was charged so long after the incident.
Ninemsn contacted the constable involved in the case at Kyneton police station but she said could not comment on the case.
Police dropped both charges of recklessly causing injury when the mother and her husband attended a court diversion hearing last Wednesday at the Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court.
The couple did not enter a plea for the remainder of the charges and were ordered to attend a parenting course as recommended in the diversion order.
They were also instructed to donate $200 to VACRO — the Victorian Association For The Care and Resettlement Of Offenders, and to write a letter of appreciation to the police officer involved in the case.
The woman said she was visited by officers from the Department of Human Services (DHS), who inspected the home and provided her with a number if she needed help.
The department said it could not provide ninemsn with details of their investigation.
"If [the department is] notified by neighbours, teachers or police that there could be some child protection issues in a family, [we] usually go and check and see what's going on," DHS spokesman Paul Heinrichs said.
"When ... somebody might be concerned, [the department] goes along and checks and they can either sort [any problems] out on the spot or, if there's a parenting issue, refer people to the various family agencies."
The mother said the incident had distressed her and she now did not know where to turn because her son, who she was "once very close to", constantly used the assault charge against her.
"He knows we can’t do anything to him; we can’t touch him, technically we're not even allowed to take his belongings off him, toys, things like that," she said.
"I'm so frustrated, upset, angry, every emotion rolled into one — we were close and now our relationship isn’t not the same.
"He knows he can boss me around and do whatever he wants."
Last week another Victorian mother was warned by authorities after hitting her nine-year-old daughter with a wooden spoon.
Claire Davidson was told she risked an assault-with-a-weapon charge after her child told classmates at Yea Public School she had been hit with a spoon.
A support worker from the school contacted police, who then told Ms Davidson she would be charged if her daughter reported being hit with the spoon again.
The incident has divided Australia, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying he approved of children being physically disciplined.
Ninemsn was flooded with over 1200 responses on the issue, with some saying the decision to hit a child was a parent’s choice and others saying smacking was an out-dated way of punishing unruly kids.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/877868/mum-charged-over-sons-wooden-spoon-smack
