Father “had good reason to slap son” – court

Lisbon’s Court of Appeal has absolved a man fined €720 for slapping his 13-year-old son in front of the child’s schoolmates. According to Público, the court understood that the slap was a “light punishment and proportionate to son’s disrespectful attitude”. The father had told the court the incident had been an “isolated act in the context of despair” (the boy had put his phone on ‘silent’ and not caught the bus home as previously agreed). Recalls Público, corporal punishment has been ‘prohibited’ since 2007.