Don’t make parents feel like criminals

CRIMINALISING parents who smack their children would be “negative, patronising and elitist”, MSPs have been warned.

A meeting of Holyrood’s equalities and human rights committee yesterday heard from experts, who clashed over the issue of smacking children, the impact it BY TOM EDEN has and whether it leads to further child abuse.

University of Stirling professor Jane Callaghan told MSPs: “Corporal punishment has no positive consequences and has plenty of negative ones.” She added smacking “doesn’t have a place in a civilised culture” and said stopping child abuse was a key issue for her.

But Dr Stuart Waiton of Abertay University said parents would react with “horror and disgust” if physical discipline was compared to child abuse.

He warned: “Children who are being seriously abused and battered might get lost in a sea of complaints by caring professionals who are now reporting every smacking incident.”

Two other expert witnesses told the committee they were in favour of a Bill brought forward by Green MSP John Finnie.

It would remove the defence of “justifiable assault” in Scots law that allows parents to use reasonable physical punishment to admonish a child.

Scottish Human Rights Commission policy officer Diego Quiroz said: “Discipline is important but it should be a non-violent discipline that is applied.”

And Dr Anja Heilmann, lead author of a report into smacking children, said physical punishment had now been banned in 54 countries.

But Waiton said: “This is a tragic, depressing Bill, and yet another one which appears to represent the aloof, elitist nature of politics and professional life that treats parents in a very patronising and degraded way.”

Tory MSP Annie Wells cited polls, saying: “We don’t have the public’s support on this Bill.

“I don’t believe we should be making parents feel criminals.”

She asked the experts: “How do you suggest we bring the public on this journey with us?”

Heilmann replied that in most countries where the law was changed, the public didn’t support it.

But she added: “Attitudes change faster in those countries where legislation has been brought forward.”