THE actions of a Wodonga father who repeatedly struck the bare bottom of his young son with a household broom have been described by a magistrate as “atrocious”.
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The Wodonga Magistrates Court was told yesterday the man became enraged at his five-year-old son when they shopped at a supermarket in April.
The man struck the boy on the bottom so hard that his feet lifted off the ground.
After returning home, the child was forced to watch his younger sister eat her dinner while he was allowed only dry Weet-Bix.
Later that evening the man held the victim down under water in the shower, the court was told.
Police said he also took the boy out to a garage, pulled down his pants and laid him over a lounge chair.
He used a broom to hit him across the bottom until his housemate intervened.
The boy has a developmental disability and is being assessed for autism.
Five days after the incident the boy’s mother, who is separated from his father, noticed bruises across the child’s lower back and bottom.
When asked where he had got the injuries the boy said, “Daddy hit me with a broom”.
Magistrate Stella Stuthridge sentenced the father-of-two to eight months’ jail, but suspended the sentence, after he plead guilty to intentionally causing injury and aggravated assault against a minor under 15.
Ms Stuthridge said the assault was made more distressing for the victim because it occurred in a garage.
The man’s lawyer, Greg Duncan, said his client regretted what he had done, and would attend courses in anger management and parenting.
Mr Duncan said, since the attack, the man’s contact with his son had been restricted to supervised visits with the child’s mother.
“He is trying to make peace with the child,” he said.
“And the child, to his credit, is having a continuing relationship with his father.”
The man, who suffers from a learning disability, had previously worked pushing trolleys and stacking shelves at a supermarket.
