Smacking: Will I be a criminal?

Sir,– I need help and am wondering if you, or your readers, could provide it.

I fear I am about to become a criminal because, being an honest man, I shall have to plead guilty to having smacked my children.

The fact they are now grown up, very balanced, very successful people seems irrelevant.

Our love and respect for each other is a great joy to me, and I am very proud of what they have become, but am now worried that I, and many thousands of good parents like me, are about to be deemed guilty of “abusing” our children if the proposed, very confusing, legislation succeeds.

Will there be a “statute of limitation” on the “crimes” we have committed innocently (no excuse in law?) over the years, or can we all expect to be caught in the big net, accused of a type of “child abuse”?

Will there be enough police to come knocking on all our thousands of doors (ironically on their own colleagues’ doors too, since I am sure the majority of police will have disciplined their own children in love)?; and while they are doing that, who will be taking care of the children who really are being abused?

What is lacking in current legislation in this regard?

What should we do? Barrie Stocks.

Flat 4, St Helens, 474 Perth Road, Dundee .