Texan in the doghouse for attack

A Texan woke up today with a stiff back after spending the first of 30 nights sleeping in a dog kennel in his front garden as punishment for beating his stepson.

His dog, a rottweiler, was forced to sleep in the open but temperatures in Orange, Texas, did not dip below 55C (12.7F).

With rain forecast, Curtis Robin, who had whipped his stepson Zachary Wiegers with a car aerial, had taken no chances and was warmly wrapped up with only his lower body inside the kennel.

The kennel had been placed on a stand in front of his garage which is emblazoned with a giant Superman insignia.

Robin had cut a deal with prosecutors in Orange that saw him escape jail by agreeing to sleep in a two-by-three-ft doghouse supplied by the state for 30 consecutive nights.

Robin is allowed to sleep with either his head or feet outside, since he cannot fit all the way into the kennel.

A police officer will patrol his home periodically each night to ensure he serves his sentence.

The deal also called for Robin to serve eight years’ probation and pay a fine.

The arrangement allows him to keep his job as a foreman for a demolition company.

His stepson Zachary, now nearly 13 and living with his father in Florida, first told police that Robin forced him to sleep in a kennel without food when he was 11.

The boy later recanted the dog house allegation, and Robin denied making him sleep outdoors – but did not dispute the other claims.

“He was whipped and he was spanked, and that’s what happened,” Robin said, although he apologised for punishing the boy excessively.

Investigators said when they first interviewed the 11-year-old in 2001, he was filthy and had mosquito bites all over his body.

Pat Anzaldi, the boy’s maternal grandfather, said Robin deserved the punishment. “I know Mr Robin is very concerned with mosquito netting and weather, but my grandson was not presented with the same treatment,” he said.

Authorities pulled Zachary out of the home in Vidor, 85 miles east of Houston, in August 2001 after a neighbour reported seeing him working in the driving rain.

His father and maternal grandfather said that when Zachary first came to live with them he was scared little boy.

He “had been beaten down and abused pretty bad,” father Rex Wiegers said.

But after an initially difficult start, they said he had bounced right back.

“Whatever abuse, whatever power this gentleman tried to force on him, it didn’t matter,” Wiegers said.