A French man accused of assaulting his son during a trip to Scotland told a court today that he had only smacked the child once after he misbehaved in a restaurant.
The 33-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of kicking and punching the child in an Edinburgh street in September last year.
He told Edinburgh Sheriff Court today he smacked the child on the bottom once after trying to reason with the eight-year-old.
Speaking through an interpreter, the factory worker Oise, who denies assault said he was in the Indian restaurant in Hanover Street for 10 minutes when his son began "screaming and having a tantrum".
The accused said: "I stood up to make sure other people weren't disturbed and took my son outside. He had annoyed everybody. I was trying to reason with him but he wouldn't listen so I slapped him on the bottom once and he allowed himself to fall over.
"I didn't want to hurt him, I wanted him to understand that he had been naughty in the restaurant."
Ms Margaret Graham, prosecuting, asked the accused if he thought two GPs, a teacher and a financial adviser were lying when they said he had mistreated the boy. He replied: "Yes, they're telling lies."
She then asked: "Why did the people in the restaurant applaud when you were taken out [of the restaurant]?"
The accused said it was "racial discrimination" and suggested they may have been feeling xenophobic after watching a rugby match between Scotland and Ireland in Edinburgh earlier that day.
The accused's wife broke down in tears as she gave evidence to the court. Also speaking through an interpreter she said: "He was saying a rude word and when I looked up I noticed that people in the restaurant were looking at us. I then asked my husband to take him outside."
The 30-year-old housewife continued: "About two to three minutes later my son came back into the restaurant. He was saying `Hurry up mummy, there's a man assaulting my daddy'."
She was in tears as she said: "It's unfair that they put my husband in jail for a slap on the bottom ... We noticed they were drunk. They weren't walking straight and they smelled of drink."
Her son also told the court he had not been punched or kicked repeatedly by his father and insisted he had only been struck once on the bottom. The child, who told the court that he was one of the best in his school at judo, also insisted he had fallen over of his own volition and not because of the force of the smack.
He told the court: "No part of my body hurt or was injured." Dr Sara Howard, a doctor who examined the boy at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh after the alleged assault, said the only marks she could find on the child's body were scratches and that the boy said they were mosquito bites.
Dr Howard said the marks were consistent with insect bites and she had no reason to doubt what the boy said.
The case continues.
PA