Tighten up current laws on smacking, paediatricians say

LAWS must be changed to ensure smacking a child is not seen as acceptable in any circumstances, paediatricians have urged.

The current law in England and Northern Ireland has created “grey areas” which mean there is sometimes a defence to physical punishment, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) said.

Wales made any type of corporal punishment, including smacking, hitting, slapping and shaking, illegal in March 2022, while Scotland introduced a similar ban in November 2020.

The RCPCH said amendments to the Children Act 2004 for England and the Law Reform Order 2006 for Northern Ireland “to remove the ‘reasonable punishment’ defence from all UK law are long overdue”.

Prof Andrew Rowland, a consultant paediatrician and RCPCH officer for child protection, said: “The laws around physical punishment as they stand are unjust and dangerously vague. They create a grey area in which some forms of physical punishment may be lawful, and some are not.”

Prof Rowland said he was “faced with situations where it is alleged that physical punishment has been used” but that the “vague nature of the laws make it extremely challenging” to talk to families about what the rules are and therefore more difficult to talk about the best interests of their children.

He said society’s views on punishment had changed over time, with a majority of adults now agreeing that physical punishment of children was unacceptable. Physical punishment could also result in a child having the learned belief that violence was accepted and this could cause “harm later in life”, he added.

Bess Herbert, advocacy specialist at international campaigning organisation End Corporal Punishment, said: “I hope that England and Northern Ireland will soon join the ever-growing number of countries that have taken this fundamental step in protecting children, upholding their rights, and supporting healthy and positive child raising”.

However, Simon Calvert, from the Be Reasonable Campaign, claimed calls for a law change “are motivated by ideology, not by clinical evidence, and elected representatives must reject them”. He added: “The current law strongly prohibits all violence against children, while protecting parents from prosecution for innocent and harmless parenting decisions.

“The reasonable chastisement defence is, by definition, limited to actions the court deems reasonable.”