A 50-year-old man has been jailed at Derry Magistrate’s Court for causing unnecessary suffering to his three children including slapping his 11-month-old daughter because she moved when he was changing her nappy.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victims, admitted three charges of child cruelty on dates between January 1th, 2014 and June 30th, 2019 to his two sons and his daughter.
The court heard in statements the children said their father “was always being aggressive” to them. They said they were not allowed to play outside nor have friends round.
On one occasion, the man had slapped the oldest son in the face and kept him off school until the marks faded.
The court also heard that one of the children, then aged four, was punched several times on the arm.
The children were also hit with a wooden spoon as well as being kicked by their father. On one occasion, he broke a toy light sabre over one of them.
Victim impact reports from the man’s former wife and two of the children revealed that they were afraid of their father and on more than one occasion he kept them off school “to hide bruises”.
The children’s grandmother also told police that she felt “uncomfortable” visiting the house and that the oldest child had told her about being physically ill-treated by his father, including being kicked and punched.
In a police interview, the man said he could be “physical” with the children but insisted the marks on his oldest was because the boy had “sensitive skin”.
He confirmed slapping the 11-month-old baby because she had started to crawl away when he was changing her. He claimed that the baby would understand “physical chastisement.”
Defence counsel Fergal McCormack said it was difficult to make any mitigation in the case. He said that the defendant “doesn’t even want me to try.”
The barrister said that the man had no previous record and has “felt the impact of his offending.”
District Judge Barney McElholm said the case had clearly passed the custody threshold, adding that he thought the days when “people physically chastised their children” were gone.
The judge said that this was not “the odd slap” but was a “sustained and frequent” course of action. He said that the children were “terrorised and afraid” of their father.
The judge said that the man would get credit for his early guilty plea and so he would impose a sentence of six months on each charge and not make them consecutive. He also imposed a restraining order imposed for five years.