Sascha Wil­son

A San Fer­nan­do mag­is­trate has told a young moth­er con­vict­ed of beat­ing her daugh­ter to find a way of dis­ci­plin­ing her child with­out us­ing cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment. Mag­is­trate Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds al­so told Gabrielle Emp­tage, 27, to walk with a list of dis­ci­pline meth­ods she used on her ten-year-old daugh­ter at her next court ap­pear­ance.

"The court will be send­ing a very wrong mes­sage in par­ent­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if I give the im­pres­sion that I am de­priv­ing you from dis­ci­plin­ing your child," the mag­is­trate said. She said chil­dren need­ed dis­ci­pline and prop­er guid­ance. The mag­is­trate asked Emp­tage to rank the dis­ci­pline meth­ods from mild, mod­er­ate to se­vere.

"I am try­ing to un­der­stand the way you struc­ture and rank pun­ish­ment even as I con­sid­er how to struc­ture and rank the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for you," she added. Emp­tage was found guilty on No­vem­ber 11 of two counts of beat­ing her daugh­ter. She was charged that be­ing a per­son over the age of 18 years and hav­ing care of a child, wil­ful­ly as­sault­ed the child in a man­ner caus­ing un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing and in­jury.

The child suf­fered scrapes and marks on her neck, left hand and on the un­der­side of her jaw af­ter Emp­tage pun­ished her on Oc­to­ber 12 and 14. How­ev­er, the mag­is­trate de­ferred sen­tenc­ing and or­dered Emp­tage to at­tend coun­selling ses­sions. Her lawyer?Shaun Teekas­ingh said his client had at­tend­ed three ses­sions, one of which was with her daugh­ter.

He said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween moth­er and daugh­ter im­proved but there was still ten­sion with adult fam­i­ly mem­bers which was caus­ing ten­sion with the child. The mag­is­trate or­dered Emp­tage to con­tin­ue at­tend­ing coun­selling ses­sions and re­turn to court on?Feb­ru­ary 1.