Chinese man whipped and beat five-year-old son

A MAN who whipped and beat his 5-year-old son for “misbehaviour” was ordered yesterday to apologise to the boy and pay for play therapy to help the child recover from the trauma.

The Chinese national has already undertaken a 10-week anger management programme, it emerged yesterday.

The man is appealing against the custodial part of a 12-month sentence on a charge of assault, causing harm to his son. He faces a 12-month sentence, with eight months of it suspended.

For legal reasons, the names or address of the parties cannot be disclosed.

A social worker said the boy, now aged eight, was still suffering emotional abuse from his father who was allowed supervised access to the child.

The appellant has apparently threatened the boy he could be taken away from his mother.

The social worker said the boy has suffered a lot of trauma. “For any therapeutic process to be effective, his father first has to apologise; to acknowledge how wrong it was; that he abused the child; that the father was wrong and that the child was right.”

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin put the appeal back, for three weeks, to Cork Circuit Appeals Court on condition the boy’s father would apologise to the boy in the presence of the social worker and pay for the therapy.

The judge warned he would go straight to jail if there was a repeat of the threats to the child.

The crime came to light when a school teacher noticed bruises and alerted gardaí.

The boy was medically examined and found to have bruises and marks on his torso consistent with being whipped. The wounds were inflicted with an 18-inch strip of narrow plastic rod designed for attaching a child’s balloon to the top.

In disturbing evidence, the sergeant said that a more extensive cut to the lip was closely examined by doctors and it was concluded that it could only have been caused by placing a hand on top of the boy’s head and another hand under his chin and forcing his upper teeth to bite hard into the lower lip until it bled.

When questioned, the appellant claimed that this particular injury was caused by the child continuously licking his lips while eating.

The sergeant said this explanation was not accepted by the prosecution.

Similarly, the father claimed a mark to the child’s penis was caused by the child’s own fingernail but this was not believed.

The appellant did plead guilty to the charge of assault causing harm to the child.

At the time, the father stated he did not realise he could not strike his child in Ireland and only did so because of his misbehaviour. “When he realised what he had done and the guidelines for safety of children (in Ireland), he was quite surprised and was totally unaware children cannot be mistreated in this way,” the investigating sergeant said.

Stephen O’Donoghue, defending, said there was some cultural explanation for the matter.

The judge noted the injured party was living full time with his mother who has separated from her husband.

The social worker said the injured party was doing well in school and was very bright.