Man guilty of assaulting young son with slipper

File photo / NZ Herald

A Masterton father has been found guilty of assaulting his 13-year-old son, punching him and beating him with a slipper.

The 36-year-old man, who cannot be named, had pleaded not guilty to eight charges of assaulting the boy between 2007 and 2011.

He defended the charges at a hearing on August 3.

In his judgment of October 5 and released by the court today, Judge Peter Hobbs found the man guilty of two assaults and one assault with a weapon - a slipper.

The boy said his father had hit him with a slipper for about two minutes non-stop, leaving bruises that required him to be kept home from school for two days.

One charge involved the man punching the boy about 10 times in the head and face, with his head against a wall that cracked.

In the second, most recent case, he had punched the boy about four times.

The father had told police he remembered the incidents but would not elaborate.

Regarding one he said, "Can we just hurry up and get me to court?'' and for the other he said, "No comment''. He also said: "Things are changing, things have been changing. I'm not the best father but I'm trying.''

Judge Hobbs found the man not guilty of five other charges - one of assault by pulling the boy's hair or ear, and four of assault with a weapon, namely a broomstick, a vacuum cleaner pipe, a plastic tennis bat and a slipper.

He is due for sentence on November 9.

Judge Hobbs said he had considered section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which applied at the time of the offences and addressed parental control and reasonable force.

The judge said he was "satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the force used was neither reasonable nor was it for any of the purposes set out in [the Act]''.