A couple who disciplined a nine-year-old boy with a bamboo stick were yesterday found not guilty of assault by a Tauranga jury.
Maureen Raupaki Reti, 38, mother, and her partner Hugh Alan Smith, 54, natural therapist, both of Paeroa, defended charges of assaulting Reti's nine-year-old child with a bamboo stick.
The Crown
case was that striking the boy on his bare buttocks hard enough to leave welts that were visible the following day could not be justified in the circumstances.
The couple's defence was that the boy's behaviour was so consistently terrible that the beating was justified.
Greg Hollister-Jones, prosecuting, said it was very easy to feel sorry for Reti and the terrible time she had with her two boys, the oldest a 17-year-old who had already been before the courts, but the jury had to condition itself against being carried by sympathy, just as it had to be wary of prejudice.
Gerald McArthur, for Smith, said the jury had to understand the boy's history of lying, stealing, abuse of teachers and several instances of cruelty to animals that included putting a cat in a microwave oven, kicking a kitten so hard ribs were broken and it had to be put down and poking a stick in a dog's eye. The actions of Reti and Smith could be placed in context.
He said Reti and Smith had the option of turning a blind eye, giving the boy a "politically correct talking to", or trying to turn the child round by the only appropriate means available.
Matthew Goodwin, for Reti, referred to medical evidence that indicated the boy was diagnosed with additional disorders, including attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.
Reti and Smith were two people from an older generation who had both experienced corporal punishment when they were young.
The jury took about 90 minutes to reach its verdict.
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
