The woman subjected her five children to assaults with not only her fists but electrical cords and wooden spoons, resulting in sores and a black eye. Photo / 123rf
Warning: Distressing content
A mother-of-five who hit her children with jug and vacuum-cleaner cords, wooden spoons and later moved to punching one of them has avoided jail.
A jury found the woman guilty of striking all five of her children, mainly between 2016 and 2019, either by punching them or hitting them with a cord or wooden spoon.
They were eventually taken off her - only for her to give birth to two more since 2019.
One of her five children was subjected to assaults with a wooden spoon and a vacuum-cleaner cord for around six years, before the punches began.
Judge Philip Crayton said while sentencing her in the Hamilton District Court today that while the assaults weren’t on a daily or weekly basis, they were “repeated”.
However, despite the guilty verdicts, the woman still denied any offending, instead believing her mother had put the children up to laying complaints with police.
Judge Crayton said for her to have any further contact with her children she would have to “acknowledge” her own failings.
Her lawyer, Thomas Sutcliffe, said he had spoken to his client about that and the point was well made, but he couldn’t address it any further.
The judge acknowledged the woman’s upbringing was all too similar to what she experienced, actions which her mother also denied.
“Your upbringing, your life that your mother gave you was one which nobody would want.
“Your mother’s denials as to what you have suffered are now effectively grafted as your denials as to what your children have suffered.”
Judge Crayton said it was important to identify the environment she created in her own home, one in which the children “feared your erratic behaviour”.
“They lived in trepidation of your unpredictability.
“Who would they encounter today? How would you behave towards them today?
“That was not down to your poor choice in partner, that was not down to your mother, that was your environment that you created.
“This was them talking about when you were there, no one else.”
He said he didn’t exaggerate the physical harm they suffered: a black eye and sores.
He said he was “thankful” that once the children were free from her home, in 2019, they spoke out and were listened to.
Judge Crayton said although the offending wasn’t at the highest level of its kind, it was still “nothing other than serious”.
“They have nowhere else to go, they were reliant on you and we as a community put our faith in the parent to do the right thing by their children, nurture them ... protect them.
“When that doesn’t occur that is a feeling of the highest magnitude.”
He now urged her to face up to her own failings and stop passing them on to everyone else.
The judge took a starting point of 34 months’ prison before applying discounts totalling 40 per cent, mostly for her upbringing and health issues.
He then converted the resulting 20-month jail term to 10 months’ home detention, followed by 12 months’ release conditions which include a non-association order on her children.
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