Doubled-up Whip Used On Children

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 3

Doubled-up Whip Used On Children

(New Zealand Press Association! AUCKLAND, December 8. A man who admitted using a doubled-up whip on his two children, but pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting them, today had his case adjourned until Monday to allow Mr F. McCarthy, S.M., to consider sentence.

The children were a girl aged 11 and a boy aged nine. The father said that when he found them doing their homework on Sunday night he was annoyed as they had told him the day before that they did not have any to do. He said they had told him lies before, and the last time he gave them a hiding with his hands they went into their bedroom and laughed. Cross-examined by Sergeant D. E. Henderson, the accused said he did not think the force used was excessive. A hiding with his hands would have been more severe. The Magistrate said he believed the father was rightly and justly annoyed, but that he did not think it was reasonable for a parent to use a whip. “It is a vicious weapon, even folded over, and I have no hesitation in saying that to raise a weal was unreasonable,” he said. The Magistrate said he was satisfied that a prims facie

case had been established. He adjourned the case until Monday for sentence, and granted interim suppression of the man's name.