Steel-capped kick 'over the top'
A Waitara widower kicked his teenage daughter in the backside with steel-capped boots and tweaked her ear when he caught her smoking, the New Plymouth District Court was told.This is the behaviour - along with punching children in the face and repeatedly shoving them over - that the child beaters are defending. Under the old law, it would likely never have been prosecuted, due to the defence of "reasonable force for the purposes of correction". Now it can be. And that is a Good Thing.Graeme Taputu, 41, pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of assaulting a child on July 1.
His lawyer, Patrick Mooney, said Taputu's wife, the mother of their three teenage daughters, had died 18 months ago and Taputu had been struggling to bring them up on his own.
He came home to find his 13-year-old daughter smoking after warning what he would do if he caught her.
"He was endeavouring to discipline his young child and was somewhat aggrieved to find her smoking."
The girl had not been injured, Mr Mooney said.
