POLICE WARN WOMAN FOR SMACKING DAUGHTER WITH WOODEN SPOON

By Neville D'Cruz

MELBOURNE, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- A woman here has been questioned by police
and warned she risked an assault-with-a-weapon charge after allegedly hitting
her nine-year-old daughter with a wooden spoon.

Claire Davidson was warned by police after her child revealed in a classroom
discussion that her mother hit her with the spoon.

Davidson said she was shocked when a support worker from Yea Public School
reported the smacking to police.

"We only use the wooden spoon and that is only when she is being naughty and
we give her fair chance to rectify the situation and we talk her through it,"
she told the Herald Sun.

She said her daughter gets three warnings and, then, "it is spoon time."

Davidson was told by police she would be charged with assault if another
instance of her daughter being hit with the spoon was reported again.

The incident has sparked a debate on smacking between parents and
child-welfare advocates.

A criminal lawyer said that whether parents are charged with assaulting
their children depends on how severe the smacking is.

"Just because you are mother or daughter doesn't make you exempt from the
law," criminal lawyer James Dowsley told the newspaper.
-- BERNAMA