Reasonable Chastisement.

I've just been listening to the Jeremy Vine show on radio 2 (mercifully Vine is absent) and one of the stories they have been discussing is that of a child smacking case.

A thirteen year old girl was banging on the neighbours windows in the night, so her father not unreasonably smacked her. Rather than accept her punishment and ponder on why people might not want their windows banging on at night, the revolting little brat phoned the police.

As a result, her father was carted off to the police station, DNA registered and after being questioned, released with a caution.

It is bad enough that this child's first instinct was to involve the police, but what makes it worse is the overreaction by the police themselves. It is quite wrong if a parent beats up a child, but in this case, as both the parent and the child admitted, the punishment consisted of a single slap. The police should have the sense to exercise reasonable judgement. This man is now on the DNA database and has a caution on his record for the horrendous crime of being a good parent.

One of the gravest problems society faces is the growing number of children who seemingly acknowledge no authority, and parents exercising no control over their children. The police actions in this situation have made it that much harder for those parents who do try to control their children.