Jailed for beating son with hosepipe

A woman has been jailed for beating her 10-year-old son with a hosepipe for wagging school.

Judge Roy Wade, in Manukau District Court yesterday, described the assault as "brutal and premeditated".

The woman, referred to as Mrs N to protect her son's identity, pleaded guilty in July to assault with intent to injure. She was jailed for 15 months.

Her husband admitted injuring the boy with intent to injure. He will be sentenced next month, and Judge Wade said he was considering home detention.

The woman was last year sentenced to six months of supervision for assaulting one of her other children, also for missing school.

The court was told Mr and Mrs N, who had eight children, had been told by the boy's school he had been absent for several days, The New Zealand Herald reported.

The parents discussed the boy's behaviour and then cut a length of hose from the garden hosepipe and put it inside the house.

When the boy got home, the family were brought into the sitting room to watch the punishment.

The boy admitted to wagging school and his mother picked up the length of hose and struck him around his legs, arms, back and head between 10 and 15 times.

"Quite naturally, the victim attempted to protect himself by covering his head and his arms, but then Mr N took the hosepipe off his wife and struck him several more blows on his legs," Judge Wade said in his sentencing notes.

The boy fled to the home of a neighbour, who phoned the police, then took him to the Otara police station.

Judge Wade said the boy had numerous welts and extensive bruising on his body from the assault.

"It is not only a brutal assault, it was a carefully planned and premeditated assault with a weapon being specially cut for the purpose, the family being gathered together and forced to watch while the beating was administered".