Hamilton mum avoids jail after hitting daughter with heater, locking 7-year-old son out in cold

Mother became so angry at what she read that she picked up a heater - which had a glass element - and struck it on the daughter's arm. Photo / 123RF

A Hamilton woman got so angry with her two children that she locked one out in the cold as a form of punishment and hit the other with a heater.

On another occasion, 38-year-old Sylvia Penney got so angry with what she found on her daughter's browsing history of her tablet that she hit her so many times with a coat hanger that it broke.

Penney's offending stretched over a six-year period and she appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court today after earlier accepting a sentence indication.

The first assault was on her daughter in 2010, who was aged 9 at the time.

The daughter was playing with her mum's phone and accidentally called her uncle. Penney got so enraged she grabbed a black leather belt, folded it in half and proceeded to hit her daughter around the arms, legs and neck 15 times over a five-minute period.

Then, in 2014, the woman became angry with her 7-year-old son. She took him outside, locked the door, leaving him out in the cold by himself.

Court documents state the boy was crying and banging on the ranch slider door to come back inside, but Penney told him, "you're not coming in here, you're a horrible boy, now get out, go live somewhere else".

He was eventually let back inside after 20 minutes.

It was while Penney and her children were visiting their grandmother that she decided to check her daughter's browsing history on her tablet.

Infuriated by what she found, she grabbed the coat hanger and struck the child about her arms, back and head multiple times over a 20-minute period until the hanger broke.

She begged her mother to stop but Penney replied by saying "this is how it feels when you lie".

Penney then threatened the victim's siblings that if they told anyone she would do the same to them.

And in July last year, after checking her daughter's text messages, Penney became so angry at what she read that she picked up a heater - which had a glass element - and struck it on the daughter's arm.

The glass shattered, leaving the victim with a cut to her arm.

Her lawyer, Satya Pandaram, said although his client had already accepted a sentence indication of community detention and community work, she had spent the last month in custody after failing to appear in court.

He submitted that the time served would be the equivalent of the community detention sentence and suggested one instead of community work coupled with intensive supervision.

The idea wasn't opposed by crown prosecutor Trelise Needham

Pandaram said the incidents had had "quite a salutary affect" on his client.

"Obviously she regrets her actions and the offences were quite impulsive."

Although she was estranged from her husband, she still had the support of her mother-in-law.

Penney's mother-in-law told Judge Noel Sainsbury that she wished to work with probation to try negotiate access to her children.

"The kids have hardly seen their parents at all, now there's nothing. As time goes by, the kids are upset and I'm just wondering if there's some way I can work with [probation] so that there's supervised contact with the [children]."

Judge Sainsbury said although he couldn't guarantee that would happen, "that's my expectation".

He said the incidents were initially categorised "as a form of discipline gone wrong".

"But quite rightly they are identified as being abuse."

The judge accepted Penney had no previous convictions and was aware she needed assistance to ensure the abuse never happened again.

He sentenced her to 150 hours' community and 15 months' intensive supervision coupled with several special conditions including to attend and complete any violence, parenting and counselling treatment programmes as directed by her probation officer.