Corpun file 20057

Daily Mail, London, 19 February 2008

Parents who smack children 'without meaning to hurt them' should not be punished, say sentencing chiefs

By Steve Doughty

Senior judges are expected to demand leniency for parents brought to court for smacking children too hard.

If they do not intend to cause physical harm, they should be given only light penalties and should not be jailed, advice for the courts is likely to say today.

The recommendations will make Labour's laws on smacking children effectively unworkable.

They will also infuriate the powerful lobby which wants to see corporal punishment made a serious crime, routinely bringing prison sentences for parents.

Rules for the courts are to be published by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the body headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips which sets down rules for judges and magistrates.

The council has already suggested that parents who do not mean to harm their children should never be jailed.

Until four years ago parents had full rights to use corporal punishment under laws dating from the 1860s, which allowed the defence of "reasonable chastisement".

But in 2004 Labour's Children Act removed that defence from parents who cause injury to their children.

Injuries which can now bring an assault charge to a mother or father can be as slight as a bruise, reddening of the skin, or "psychological" harm.

However, in consultation papers produced last year, the council said the courts should continue to give great weight to the "reasonable chastisement" doctrine.

It said then that if there is no intention to cause injury, this should be seen as "substantial mitigation".

It recommended: "Such a finding of fact should result in a substantial reduction in sentence and should not result in a custodial sentence.

"Where not only was the injury neither intended nor foreseen, but was not even reasonably foreseeable, then a discharge might be appropriate."

The 2004 compromise law on smacking has failed to satisfy the lobby group pushing for physical punishment of children to be outlawed.

A group of Labour MPs is trying to gather support in the Commons.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has said smacking is supported by a big majority of parents and has promised that there will be no ban.

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