North Lakes mum guilty of assaulting toddler with coat hanger

A southeast Queensland mother has pleaded guilty to assaulting her toddler with a coat hanger, telling a court she was unaware the harsh punishment was considered illegal.

A stressed out, working mum from North Lakes repeatedly hit her toddler on the leg with a plastic coat hanger in a misguided attempt at discipline, the Pine Rivers Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday.

The pharmacist and mother-of-two, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm.

The court heard the woman was running late for work late last year when she became frustrated with her 3.5-year-old son’s behaviour and lashed out, striking him several times on the leg.

A North Lakes mum told the court she was unaware of the cultural differences in child discipline.

When the woman dropped the boy at daycare, she showed the red marks to the childcare workers and explained he’d been acting up.

In an affidavit tendered to the court, the woman told Magistrate Melanie Ho that, as a child growing up in Malaysia, she’d been subject to a “strict environment” where it was normal for her to be “locked in a room and disciplined with a clothes hanger”.

The woman claimed she did not understand the cultural difference in child discipline until the assault charge, at which time she signed up for a Triple P Positive Parenting course to learn “warm, loving discipline will have a better effect”.

Police prosecutor sergeant Graham Turner said the mother has no prior criminal history and her actions were considered “excessive domestic discipline and not the case of an abusive parent”.

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Ms Ho accepted the woman was an “exasperated, busy working mother … who didn’t know this was not acceptable in Australia”.

“You do now, you’re a highly educated woman, and I’m confident there’ll be no further occurrences.”

The woman was sentenced to a 12 month $1000 good behaviour bond.