A Salmon Arm mother and father found guilty of assault for spanking their daughter have been given a conditional discharge. A judge put the pair on a 12-month probation with three conditions.
The sentence was handed down Tuesday afternoon in Salmon Arm. The judge said the parents were not a risk to the community, voluntarily underwent counselling and were genuinely remorseful.
The parents were convicted of assault with a weapon earlier this year for using a plastic hockey stick and a skipping rope to spank their 14-year-old child.
The court heard the teen was punished after her parents discovered she had sent nude photos of herself over the Internet.
Her friends found out and went to school officials who then notified the RCMP.
The father testified during the trial that he had no idea that the law doesn’t allow corporal punishment or that he might be breaking the law when he spanked his daughter.
Judge Edmond de Walle found the father’s denial of the bruising she suffered from the spanking troubling and added it suggested the father was downplaying the seriousness of the events.
De Walle also said the teen could not have consented to the punishment given the amount of force applied and the use of weapons.
-With files from The Canadian Press and Megan Turcato
Comments