Mum Taken To Court After Hitting Daughter On Bum With Wooden Spoon

A mum in Australia has been charged with common assault after hitting her daughter on the bum with a wooden spoon.

The 35-year-old from Perth - whose name has been withheld - was deemed to have used an unnecessary amount of force when she struck her nine-year-old daughter in October.

Pexels/Eneida Nieves

Police said the mum hit her daughter with the spoon after she found her eating meat out of the fridge that she had previously told her not to touch - the meat had worming tablets inside and was intended for their dogs.

The force of the spoon strike caused her daughter to bruise, but the mum's lawyer, Stephen Preece, said she had no previous criminal record, describing the incident as a 'moment of frustration'.

He added that the daughter has ongoing behavioural issues stemming from ADHD and was receiving treatment from a paediatrician.

The mum was handed a suspended $750 fine and a spent conviction at Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

According to WA Today, the presiding magistrate said: "You struck your nine-year-old with a wooden spoon and by your plea you accept that the force you used was more than necessary to correct her.

"I'm satisfied this is unlikely to happen again."

A second charge for having care for a child that was reckless was dropped by the state; it emerged the charge related to the girl complaining to police that her mum used to lock her in her room.

The court heard that the mum was a victim of domestic violence and the daughter had witnessed this in the home.

Elsewhere in Australia, a man has admitted to throwing his girlfriend's cat down a seven-storey rubbish chute because he was jealous of the attention that she was giving it.

RSPCA

The 21-year-old Sydney resident abused Hibala, a two-year-old Ragdoll cat, on two separate occasions while his girlfriend was away and the animal was in his care.

The defendant was ordered to pay a large fine and to fulfil corrective orders - including a three-month intense corrections - but was spared jail because of an early guilty plea.

The magistrate at Downing Centre Local Court told the man: "I have no idea what to say to a person who places a cat in a garbage chute.

"The early guilty plea is the only thing keeping [the defendant] out of jail."

The man was given a fine of AUD $6,000 (£3,300 / US $4,200) and given a two-year community order with three months of intensive corrections.

Topics: World News, crime, Weird, Australia

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey