Judge Turns Tables on Driver’s Schoolboy Accuser

A schoolbus driver was taken to court for grabbing the arm of a rowdy boy who would not stop pulling a girl’s hair.

But the judge threw out the charge – and had a policeman take the 12-year-old boy to the police cells as a warning.

Jim McCorkindale, 70, of Gore in Southland, told the Weekend Herald that while dropping off children last July, he saw two boys pulling the hair of a girl and got out of his driver’s seat to try to stop it.

“I went over and touched the boy on the arm to attract his attention, and that was the assault.”

When the boy did not respond to being told to stop, “I threatened to hit him in the ribs, and he flinched and let the kid’s hair go to protect his ribs”, Mr McCorkindale said.

“But I never touched him again.”

The boy had continued misbehaving after Mr McCorkindale returned to his seat.

Children on the bus called the police and he found officers waiting to talk to him when he finished his run.

When police rejected the option of diversion, Mr McCorkindale received a court summons.

But in the Gore District Court, Judge Kevin Phillips threw out the charge.

Instead, he told the boy he should be “thoroughly ashamed” of himself and had a policeman take him to the cells, the Southland Times reported.

Mr McCorkindale said he found it disgusting that he was charged in the first place.

“You can’t do a bloody thing,” he said. “It’s better to hop out of the bus and leave them to it. See nothing.

“The days of sit down, shut up, do as you are told, are gone. When I was going to school, you did what you were told. Now, you sometimes do as you’re asked – if it suits you.”

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There should be more judges like Kevin Phillip J. Parents and those in charge of children have been castrated by the law and look at the results, little snots like this boy are rampant within our society. No I am not just talking about smacking (I do not believe in loco parentis corporal punishment in any regard and this is a 12 year old in this case) I have in my sights the laws that enable this behaviour and the practice of state authorities telling young people that they can do what they want, that they do not have to do what the adults taking care of them say, the laws that give those young people too much freedom before they are ready for it.

But speaking of smacking, anyone feeling confident in this exhibit of the police discretion that we’re all supposed to have faith in, in choosing to push this prosecution attempt and oppose diversion?