'Girl taught to hate'

Looks like someone skipped out on Parenting 101:

A seven-year-old girl apprehended by Child and Family Services said she believed only white people deserve to live and talked casually of how to kill black people, a court heard yesterday.

"She said 'You would whip black people with a ball and chain and they would die,' " testified a social worker who interviewed the girl after she showed up at school last year with a swastika and racist writings drawn on her body.

Child and Family Services is seeking permanent guardianship of the now eight-year-old girl and her three-year-old stepbrother, while the boy's father is fighting to regain custody of the children. A two-week trial began yesterday.

The mother and the boy's father, who are now separated, cannot be identified under terms of a publication ban.

The children's mother was not present in court yesterday. A lawyer retained on her behalf just last week asked that the case be adjourned. Justice Marianne Rivoalen rejected the request.

The social worker testified the girl told her she and her parents routinely watched "white pride" videos which discussed killing black people. She said the girl said "everyone who is not white should die."

The girl also said her parents featured her and her brother in a poster with the words "Missing: a future for white children" and then plastered it across town.

In an assessment forwarded to CFS, the social worker said the girl was taught to hate everyone who is not white, was "very knowledgeable about (Adolf) Hitler," and considered such racist beliefs as normal.

The social worker said the children's mother called her several days after they were apprehended "yelling about freedom of speech" and protesting that she and her husband were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

'PROUD TO BE WHITE'

The social worker said the girl's mother told her she didn't wash off the racist writings and symbols "because she wanted to piss off the school" and that she was "proud to be white."

The father's lawyer asked the social worker if the children would have been candidates for apprehension if one of them showed up at school with a "sign of the cross or a Star of David" drawn on their arm.

The social worker said "it had nothing to do with what was drawn on her arm, it was what was disclosed in the interview (with the girl)."

Outside court, the girl's biological father defended her mother as a good person easily manipulated by others.

"If (she) met a priest on Wednesday she'd be a nun by Thursday," the man said. "I know there is good in her ... But she is a lost kid."

The trial continues.

Thoughts?

Boy, 3, filmed smoking, mother convicted

A British mother has been given a suspended sentence after her toddler was filmed smoking a cigarette in front of her.

Kelly Marie Pocock, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a child under 16 at a hearing last month, the British Press Association (PA) reported.

Details of the case emerged when she appeared in the Merthyr Crown Court on Thursday for sentencing and were reported by PA.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees told the court: "The video demonstrates the boy placing a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and sucking, drawing smoke clearly into the lungs and he seems to do it with some accomplishment."

"It doesn't cause him any discomfort. He is sat on a chair close to the mother, who is talking on the phone."

"It is clear that the boy, at the age of three, knows what to do with a lighter and cigarette," Rees said.

PA reported the court was told the three year old was filmed on a mobile phone by Natasha Dudley, a friend of the boy's mother.

The prosecutor said Miss Dudley had gone looking for the boy while visiting Pocock's home just after Christmas 2007.

"She found him underneath the bed with some cigarettes," Mr Rees told the court, according to PA. "He was actually smoking one at the time and Miss Dudley said it looked like he had been smoking for many years."

After the boy was taken downstairs, the court was told he went into the living room, picked up a cigarette butt from an ashtray and smoked it. His mother was nearby talking on the phone.

It was at that point that Miss Dudley filmed the boy on the phone and later forwarded it to social services.

Pocock is reported to have pleaded guilty on the basis that she hadn't seen her son smoking on that occasion, or ever before, PA reported.

In an interview with police, she is said to have told officers that she was "shocked" when the matter was drawn to her attention.

Judge John Curran told the court the case was one of the most "extraordinary" he had ever come across, PA reported.

He said the boy would not have been able to smoke without discomfort "unless he had acquired a habit."

"This is an appalling situation and I don't see how, despite your basis of plea, you could have been unaware of the fact."

Judge Curran sentenced Pocock to 40 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years. He also imposed a 12 month supervision requirement as part of the sentence, PA reported.

Judge Curran added that while the offence would normally attract a jail sentence, he didn't want to cause her children any further emotional harm by separating them from their mother.