Man bites daughter

A GOLD Coast man bit his teenage daughter on the cheek in a “bizarre” and “atrocious” incident this year.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, bit the 13-year-old girl because she had not tied her shoelaces just before she ran on to the field for a touch football match in Hervey Bay. He pleaded guilty in Southport Magistrates Court yesterday to assault occasioning bodily harm.

Magistrate Gary Finger fined him $900 and no conviction was recorded.

He described the circumstances as “bizarre”.

“I have never yet in my time here seen a parent bite their child on the cheek,” he said. “It’s quite atrocious.” The court heard the man had travelled with his daughter to a touch football tournament in Hervey Bay on July 13. Prosecutor Emma Bryan said he noticed her shoes were untied, called her back, gave her a talking to, “then bent close to her and bit her on the cheek”.

She said it left the girl’s cheek red and swollen.

Outside court the man said he had apologised to the teen.

“It was a brain freeze ... unacceptable,” he said.

Defence barrister Martin Longhurst, instructed by Moloney MacCallum Abdelshahied Lawyers, said there had been no other incidents between the pair.