A nanny listened helplessly outside to the sound of a six-year-old girl screaming "no mummy, no" as her mother rained slaps on the child's back and buttocks, the Greymouth District Court heard yesterday.
Police said in court that the mother, Crystal Karyn O'Neill, 39, of Kokatahi, smacked the girl more than 10 times with such force that the welts were clearly visible when a doctor examined her four days later.
O'Neill was yesterday sentenced to nine months' supervision and ordered to attend parenting, anger management and domestic violence programmes after she admitted assaulting the child on June 25.
Police prosecutor sergeant Mark Harris said O'Neill worked nights so she had a live-in nanny, who had a 12-year-old daughter.
On the day of the incident the older girl told O'Neill that the six-year-old had drawn over some of her belongings and furniture.