Pepper thrown in boy's eyes as punishment

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Throwing pepper in a six-year-old boy's eyes as a punishment was an unthinking act, done under extreme stress, Lower Hutt District Court was today.

Craig Leslie Ozich, 31, was sentenced by Judge John Walker to 150 hours' community service after pleading guilty to assault on a child.

He was also ordered to undergo 18 months' supervision, with special conditions, including an order to undergo counselling, and an order not to have any contact with his victim without authorisation from his probation officer.

Judge Walker said Ozich had been boarding at a house where the boy and his mother lived.

The boy's mother was recuperating after an operation, and Ozich had taken over some of the duties of looking after the house, and the boy.

On August 6, Ozich was asked by the mother to help deal with an incident involving her son. The boy had been putting pepper in their pet dog's eyes.

Ozich responded by taking the pepper shaker from the boy and putting pepper in both of his eyes, causing them to burn, and the child to start screaming.

Ozich later said he wanted the boy to feel what it was like.

The boy suffered no lasting injuries as a result of the attack.

Defence counsel Sue Earl said the boy had been undergoing some "huge difficulties", which had since been diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and possibly a form of Asperger Syndrome.

The disorders manifested themselves in the boy in the form of cruelty towards animals, and violence towards people, Ms Earl said.

The mother had not been coping.

"Mr Ozich did resort, unthinkingly at the time, to actually sprinkling the pepper on the young victim's face," Ms Earl said.

"In hindsight he does realise as the adult he shouldn't have done that."

Ms Earl said disciplinary measures that may have been acceptable in the past, and as recently as 10 years ago, were no longer acceptable, particularly with the new laws surrounding child abuse.

She said Ozich was depressed, and suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome.

Ozich was no longer living at the house and there was "no chance" of him moving back in, but he and the mother remained friends, and wanted that friendship to continue. The mother was in court supporting Ozich.

He was immediately remorseful at the pain he had caused and washed out the child's eyes before he was taken to a medical centre.

Judge Walker said the boy's behaviour had been "very testing" for all around him, but had improved since his illness was diagnosed.

The boy had been asking after Ozich and wondering why he could not see him any more. "I take from that that he harbours no ill feeling towards you as a result of this event," he told Ozich.

He said several contributing factors had come to a head on August 6.

"You with your own mental health difficulties, the young six-year-old boy with ADHD being cruel to animals and violent to others, clearly in need of medical intervention, the boy's mother just returned from hospital with all the stresses that that brings," he said.

"It was an inappropriate and extreme reaction looking at it clearly and at a distance from all those stressors, but it was borne out of stressful circumstances."

Mitigating the crime was Ozich's immediate remorse and early guilty plea.

- NZPA