Old Lady Gets Criminal Record For Hitting Swearing Teenager With Church Newsletter!

[Si Hunt]

You haven't been to a football match for a while, have you?

No, I have not!

singers get away with it in pop songs

Not in publically broadcast pop songs they don't - all swear words have to be re-recorded or censored, and frequently are.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

The boy's mother is right, it is unacceptable. The fact is she complained to the Police about her son being struck by this woman and they simply cannot sweep it under the carpet; the Police would be forced to take some action because it meets the threshold criteria for child neglect/abuse - this whole Baby P case has put child abuse firmly in the public eye. They gave the woman a caution - the most lenient punishment they could - but she refused to hold her hands up and apologise for hitting a child. She made the bed, she can lie in it.

Just coming back on Pip's post, but again I'm afraid I'm kind of siding more with Wayne (and others) in that it isn't actually automatically unacceptable. I can easily think of plenty of situations where a clip round the ear or a whack on the head would do a world of good. Yes, I can think of many situations where it would not, but that doesn't mean it should be suddenly illegal across the board.

I don't dispute that "it meets the threshold criteria for child neglect/abuse" - but I think the general point is that those criteria need to be looked at. How can anybody equate this situation with abuse, or neglect? Even the most basic application of common sense would say that it isn't, surely.

Sorry but it was me I would rather accept a caution and bite my tongue than go to Court and face the rigmarole, stress and legal costs.

Really? I think most people would be pretty p***ed off if they were firmly convinced they'd done nothing wrong. Are we really saying that she should have just taken the easiest option?




BTW, our home hub has gone the way of all flesh, so until the new one comes Monday I shall probably be offline (I'm currently round babysitting at bruv's, hence the posting) so if I don't post on here again I'm not ignoring replies!!

[Pip Madeley]

Just coming back on Pip's post, but again I'm afraid I'm kind of siding more with Wayne (and others) in that it isn't actually automatically unacceptable. I can easily think of plenty of situations where a clip round the ear or a whack on the head would do a world of good. Yes, I can think of many situations where it would not, but that doesn't mean it should be suddenly illegal across the board.

Okay then Andrew, let's look at it this way. Let's suppose - purely for argument you understand - in a few years time your little girl got in with a group of girls, did something she shouldn't have and some elderly woman hit her across the face. Would you side with the elderly woman or would you feel that it was inappropriate for her to have done that?

[Jon Masters]

they were firmly convinced they'd done nothing wrong.

And in almost every case the vast majority of people are convinced in their own minds that they've done nothing wrong. We get it at school all the time, both from students and their parents.

I'm in two minds about this really - yes I agree that a court do is a waste of time and money, but you get the impression that this woman was determined to make a big fuss about it and play the martyr. Its a bit like those pensioners who refuse to pay a portion of the coucil tax for one reason or another and then cause a huge uproar when they get sent down for it.

I'd have made them both perform a public apology to each other in open court, or even better in front of the whole town.

[Wayne]

Judge Jefferies bangs his gavel.

Bring back the stocks and rotten fruit i say!

[Rob McCow]

Okay then Andrew, let's look at it this way. Let's suppose - purely for argument you understand - in a few years time your little girl got in with a group of girls, did something she shouldn't have and some elderly woman hit her across the face. Would you side with the elderly woman or would you feel that it was inappropriate for her to have done that?

Personally, I'd be cross and would try and sort it out, but it's not a matter for the police.

I'd have a bit more sympathy for the kid if he'd called the police from his hospital bed, suffering from a black eye and dislocated neck. Or if the elderly lady had hit him with an iron bar that she'd torn from the church railings. There's no evidence that the kid was physically hurt by the 'assault'.

[Si Hunt]

Judge Jefferies

Wasn't he mentioned in "The Five Doctors"?

Si.

[Wayne]

Was he?

I should've had that as my user name.

[Si Hunt]

"Wordsworth... Rutherford... Christopher Smart... Andrew Marvel... Judge Jefferies... Owen Chadwick!"

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

"Who?"

[Si Hunt]

Hands up who thought it was "Oh and Adric!"

Si.

[Jeff]

That boy could have got a paper cut which might have become infected with Staph. He's lucky to be alive!

They should lock this old menace up and throw away the key!

[Andrew Curnow]

did something she shouldn't have and some elderly woman hit her across the face. Would you side with the elderly woman or would you feel that it was inappropriate for her to have done that?

Frankly it would probably depend on what the "something she shouldn't have" was - but as Rob says, I certainly wouldn't be down the police station as a first port of call, no. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this particular situation (and as I said in one of my earlier posts there are so many things we don't really know from the reports) I just do not believe the police should have been involved in this. Sorry.

We're obviously not going to agree, Pip, and I'm not having a personal go honest. I don't want to play the age card, but maybe it is just a generational thing - I'm not sure about when exactly it was stopped, but there was still corporal (or is it capital?) punishment at school when I was young, probably not by the time you were there, and so I suppose that sort of thing does give a slightly different perspective?

Anyway, it's always good to have a lively debate on PS!!

[Si Hunt]

My debates are like my children - I like them to go on and become interesting.



"Let's have a heated debate!"

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Or a mass debate.

[Pip Madeley]

I think you're right about the generational gap - I certainly don't want any kids I have to go to school in an atmosphere where the teacher has the right to harm them without my permission or knowledge.

[Wayne]

I think you're right about the generational gap - I certainly don't want any kids I have to go to school in an atmosphere where the teacher has the right to harm them without my permission or knowledge.

Depends what you call 'harm'. That's the crux of this whole discussion really.
These days people talk about a clip round the ear as though it's the same thing as a serious beating. There's a world of difference in how these things are perceived today compared to when i was at school.
Someone of my generation, whose parents & teachers were allowed to use their own judgement on when & how to discipline their kids, beore the rise of today's nanny state, will invariably say: 'It didn't do me any harm'.
Even so, getting the cane or the slipper was a pretty rare thing, & even the proberbial, on the spot 'clip round the ear' in the classroom was far from an everyday thing. Such things only happened after the failure of everything else. You knew that if it had got to the point where your Mum & Dad, or your teacher had to smack you, then you more than likely deserved it. And in most cases you learned your lesson.
That's where the 'moddlycoddled society' comes from, because the very thought of smacking these days brings gasps of horror from all the well intentioned, but ultimately naive polictically correct types who go off as if giving kid a clip round the ear is the same thing as an actual punch in the face or something.
It's like Si Hunt was talking about earlier about applying common sense & disntinguishing between a tap & a thumb. One does no harm, whilst the other is actually abuse. How can we have a system that gets all high & mighty about a kid being hit with some paper for chrissakes, but fails in cases of really serious abuse like that poor little baby that was killed? Perhaps if the system wasn't so beaurocratic, & perhaps if the overstreched social services didn't have to waste time, money, & resourses mollycoddling unwarranted cases of so called 'abuse', then they might be able to concentrate on the real thing.

Btw... Andrew, It 'corporal' punishment, definitely not 'capital' punishment. Even in my day, teachers weren't allowed to actually kill the kids. (As much as they might've wanted to, & all that)

[Pip Madeley]

Perhaps if the system was so beaurocratic, & perhaps if the overstreched social services didn't have to waste time, money, & resourses mollycoddling unwarranted cases of so called 'abuse', then they might be able to concentrate on the real thing.

Further to that Wayne, I can confirm that each case reported to Social Services is evaluated by the local authority's Children's Services Legal department (i.e. us) and the appropriate assessments are made before the decision to commence care proceedings (Court) is made. The number of cases going into proceedings has only increased of late due to the whole Baby P situation - so thanks to the media and opinionated persons even if the case isn't of the highest priority it would now most likely be taken forward to Court because if the baby is subsequently harmed and Children's Services are known to have assessed the case previously then, of course, there'd be a big furore in the press. The local authority has to be seen to take action and so the Social Services are only overstretched due to the media's interference and the frightening amount of people who don't know how to take care of their children...

[Wayne]

Well i know it must be a minefield, & i'm not blaming social sevices for the levels of beaurocrisy, That's down to the government, & it's got even worse under New Labour. Anyone who's spent any time in hospital will probably be able to tell you that there are almost as many managers on the wards as nurses these days.
Anyway i digress.... My point is that someone who's had a clip round the ear is hardly a case of abuse. But it stands to reason that if someones got bruises or whatever, then that's clearly a lot more suspect. Like Si said, it's just common sense.
Still, perhaps it was mistake on my part to bring Baby P into it, because the two cases aren't logistically comparable. Still, you'd think the authorities would more serious stuff to deal with in a world where such things are going off. I think both parties in this case should've been done for wasting police time.

the frightening amount of people who don't know how to take care of their children...

That's one of the scariest, & saddest (in the proper sense of the word) things about today's society. Several times i've heard my Mum & Dad say 'I don't why half today's generation have kids'. Some don't deserve to have 'em.

[Captain Tancredi]

That's where the 'moddlycoddled society' comes from, because the very thought of smacking these days brings gasps of horror from all the well intentioned, but ultimately naive polictically correct types who go off as if giving kid a clip round the ear is the same thing as an actual punch in the face or something.

Well, a lot of the pressure to scrap corporal punishment came from the European Union- so is there something that the 24 other countries know about how to bring up children that we don't? I do seriously wonder whether other countries don't do better at bringing up children to have both a strong sense of their own identity and as part of a wider society, whereas we're still stuck in the Victorian mentality of raising factory fodder, except without the factories at the end of the process.

I don't think it's so much one generational gap, though, as lots of little ones. And quite often it's as much the failure of older people to recognise that youngsters today are far less restrained in their language or inclined to talk in public about sex, drink and drugs than their grandparents were- it's nobody's fault and just reflects sixty years of cumulative social change.

[Wayne]

Well, a lot of the pressure to scrap corporal punishment came from the European Union- so is there something that the 24 other countries know about how to bring up children that we don't? I do seriously wonder whether other countries don't do better at bringing up children to have both a strong sense of their own identity and as part of a wider society, whereas we're still stuck in the Victorian mentality of raising factory fodder, except without the factories at the end of the process.

Well it does make you wonder.
But it does seem to me to be just part of a greater scheme of things that piss me off about about the state of things these days, & everything seems to be linked together.
What Si said earlier about kids having no respect for anything or anyone seemed to ring loads of bells for me. I dunno. Maybe i'm just having a bad day.

[Dirk Gently]

What Si said earlier about kids having no respect for anything or anyone seemed to ring loads of bells for me. I dunno. Maybe i'm just having a bad day.

No, it is not just you. I feel the same way & yet my Sister's kids are really well adjusted & polite so I still maintain it is the parents fault in most cases.

[Wayne]

& yet my Sister's kids are really well adjusted & polite so I still maintain it is the parents fault in most cases.

Gotta be the major factor really, hasn't it.