A man from an unspecified town in the Province of Granada has been sentenced to a 6-months (suspended) prison term for violently shaking his child.
A man from an unspecified town in the Province of Granada has been sentenced to a 6-months (suspended) prison term for violently shaking his child.
The defendant appealed against a lower court verdict in which he was found guilty and took it to the Appeals Court in Granada where this second verdict was handed down, rejecting his appeal. Furthermore, the judge issued a court injunction prohibiting him from approaching his son for the next two years.
The father had argued that what had happened between him and his son had been manipulated by the boy’s mother. In fact, it happened in the estranged father’s home (established in the divorce, shared-custody arrangement) not in the mother’s.
His lawyer had argued that his client’s presumption of innocence had been impinged and that all evidence pointed to the “animosity” of the woman towards her ex husband.
The father also argued that the 8-year-old boy often lied. The accused even provided a recording of his son apologising for having lied about his having suffered a twisted ankle to his mother requiring a visit to hospital.
However, the appeals judge accepted none of these claims putting credence on a statement from the child: the boy recounted how they had been sat at the dinner table and had told his father that he couldn’t put up with the situation anymore and received a slap. The boy said that he forgave his father the slap if he promised not to hit him again.
The incident where the father violently shook the boy occurred in February, 2022. At a given moment, the father slapped the boy, then grabbing him under his arms began shaking him. The two actions caused bruising to his face and to his chest.
Editorial comment: I’m sorry but I was brought up very differently by my parents to how parents have to navigate between the task of bringing up a child so it doesn’t run wild and getting arrested for giving a child a slap on the arse when it was required. We also faced six of the best at school for misbehaving. I pity today’s parents and teachers.
(News: Province of Granada, Andalucia)
keywords: Father, Mother, Divorced, Shared Custody, Child, Violently Shaken, Appeals Court, Guilty, 6-Month’s Imprisonment
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