Disgracefully, the English are still allowed to hit their children
Reasonable wife-beating. Reasonable Jew-baiting. Reasonable racism. Reasonable physical or verbal abuse of homosexuals. The placing of the word ‘reasonable’ in front of these words is an immediately recognisable nonsense. Yet ‘reasonable chastisement’ of children is still permissible under English law – though not in Scotland or Wales.It seems quite extraordinary that the law, which has gone so far in the last half-century towards protecting the person, and the sensitivities, of groups perceived to be vulnerable, should still permit the most obviously vulnerable – babies and small children – to be beaten. As someone who was regularly beaten until I bled, from the age of seven or eight onwards, and threatened with beatings by my father – who did indeed thrash my elder brother – I take exception to the use of the word ‘reasonable’ coming anywhere near the noun that describes this horrible cluster of monstrosities. To the physical pain...
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