DOCS CALL FOR SMACKING BAN

DOCTORS are demanding a stop to the harmful “Victorian” punishment of smacking children.

- BY MARTIN BAGOT Health Editor

They claim it damages kids physically, mentally and emotionally and they want parents’ current “reasonable punishment” protection ended.

Calls to ban smacking intensified after the murder of Sara Sharif, 10, following a two-year “campaign of torture” by her father and stepmother.

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health child protection officer Prof Andrew Rowland said smacking puts children at risk of “really significant physical harm” in later life.

Prof Rowland said: “It places them at increased risk of serious physical assault, it harms their mental health and it harms their emotional health and their wellbeing.”