Corpun file 19597

The Herald-Sun, Melbourne, 12 September 2007

Brush spanking mum walks free

By Maria Rae

• Spanked 14-year-old with wooden brush
• Was punishment for daughter skipping school
• Judge says mother must live with her actions

A WOMAN who struck her teenage daughter's bare buttocks with a hearth brush until she wet herself left a Tasmanian court unpunished today.

Justice Peter Evans said it was unnecessary to punish Michelle Joyce Cooper because she already had to live with the consequences of her actions. 

He placed her on a three-year good behaviour bond.

The Primrose Sands woman was found guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart last week of assaulting her 14-year-old daughter.

Cooper, 46, tied her daughter to a bed, pulled down her pants and hit her with a wooden hearth brush after becoming angry with her for wagging school, the court had been told.

The judge said her "misguided and overzealous" effort to curb her daughter's risk-taking behaviour proved counterproductive.

He said she had now lost the care of two daughters.

© Herald and Weekly Times.