"One can only imagine his horror...and the screams that must have rung out"
A Coventry mum disciplined her young son by ‘branding’ him with a hot kitchen knife.
The 26-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the boy’s identity, heated the knife on the cooker and then pressed it on to the six-year-old boy’s back, leaving a deep burn.
The mother, in a manner designed to discipline the boy, had heated a knife on the cooker before pressing it against his back, in what the judge said was “a deliberate, considered act”.
The police were contacted and when she was arrested the mother’s initial account was that her son had climbed onto the kitchen worktop and had burned himself on the grid of the hob.
Mr Barnfield said she had entered her plea on the basis that although she had heated the knife and pushed it against his back, she had not intended to cause serious harm and did not realise just how hot it was.
On realising the seriousness of the injury, she said she applied cream and a dressing.
And she said she was originally from Kurdistan where physical punishment, including of the type she used, was common and accepted.
Without any real support network around her, she had resorted to using discipline she had seen as a child.
Mr Barnfield, who said the boy and the woman’s other children are now in care, confirmed there was “a history of physical punishment employed by both parents”.
The woman initially denied a charge of cruelty to a child, but later changed her plea to guilty and was jailed for 11 months at Warwick Crown Court.
Upon jailing the mother, Judge Lockhart told her: “You have been blessed with the gift of children. With that great gift comes great responsibility.
“Those who are born to one as a parent rely entirely on their parents to be nurtured, cared for and protected.
As you well know through the life you have sadly lived, life experiences as a child leave a real mark.
“In May last year you were struggling to cope. He no doubt was challenging, but you decided, when he asked for something you were not happy about, to injure him.
“In this country the law requires that those who are entrusted with children behave towards them in a humane and civilised fashion.
“Despite the powerful personal mitigation, this was an act of real and shocking cruelty. I would be failing in my public duty if I did not send you immediately to custody.”
"Coventry mum" from Kurdistan?
