June 9, 2015, "Immigrants should be allowed to hit their children because there is a 'different cultural context', says High Court Judge," UK Daily Mail, Ian Drury
"Mrs Justice Pauffley made the comments after ruling in a case about custody of an eight-year-old boy whose parents had overstayed their visa."
‘In this instance...the boy did not appear to have suffered more than sadness and transient pain from what was done to him.’
Reacting
to the comments, an NSPCC spokesman said last night: ‘Children need to
be protected irrespective of cultural sensitivities. Different practices
are no excuse for child abuse taking place in this country and the law
doesn’t make that distinction.
‘Every child deserves the right to be safe and protected from physical abuse and the courts must reflect this.’
Under the
Children’s Act 2004 it is illegal for parents to smack their children if
blows cause bruising, swelling or cuts. Guilty parents can be jailed
for up to five years. Mrs Justice Pauffley’s comments are controversial
because they will revive memories of the sickening case of Victoria
Climbie in 2000.
The
eight-year-old, who came from Ivory Coast, was tortured and murdered by
her great-aunt Marie-Thérèse Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning.
The official report castigated the authorities for failing to intervene, even though the child was suspected of being at risk.
Opening an
inquiry into the youngster’s death in September 2001, Neil Garnham QC
said the fear of being accused of racism may have led to inaction by
police, social services and NHS staff.
In
the hearings, social worker Lisa Arthurworrey, who is
African-Caribbean, admitted that her assumptions about African–Caribbean
families influenced her judgement, and that she had assumed Climbie’s
timidness in the presence of Kouao and Manning stemmed not from fear,
but from the African–Caribbean culture of respect toward parents.
Ratna
Dutt of the Race Equality Foundation said at the time: ‘The implicit
message is that it’s acceptable for ethnic minorities to receive poor
services under the guise of superficial cultural sensitivity. This is
absolutely shameful.’
Last
night Philip Hollobone, the Conservative MP for Kettering, said: ‘We
simply can’t have a situation where different rules apply to families
from different backgrounds. The law of the land should apply equally
regardless of the heritage of the children involved.
‘Children with Indian heritage deserve the same protection in law as white British children.
‘I
really do wonder sometimes whether judges in our senior courts have
adequate training for some of the cases that come before them.’
Mrs
Justice Pauffley, sitting in the family division of the High Court in
London, heard the boy’s parents met and married in India a decade ago.
They travelled to Britain on a six-month visa but failed to return when
the visas ran out and became ‘overstayers’, the court heard.
The husband
was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his wife but was released on
bail and told to stay away from her and the youngster. He then launched court litigation in October last year asking a judge to return the boy to his care.
The
judge said she had been asked to make preliminary decisions about
whether – on balance of probability – he had attacked his wife and son.
The boy made ‘physical assault allegations’ about his father and told investigators: ‘With his belt, he kind of hits me.’
Mrs
Justice Pauffley said the man denied striking his son with a belt or
otherwise. Asked to describe what he meant by a slap, the father said:
‘This was not to slap [the boy] badly but to keep him disciplined.’
The
judge concluded the man had not physically abused his son but had
subjected his wife to a ‘horribly aggressive and violent assault’
including strangling her.
Mrs Justice Pauffley gave no detail about the progress of any police investigation into that assault.
The
59-year-old, who has sat in the family division since 2003, has three
stepchildren with her husband, whom she married in 2001."
.
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