Last update - 00:00 01/01/2007
Child advocates slam 'laughable' sentence for abusive father
By Ruth Sinai , Haaretz Correspondent
Child welfare groups are outraged over a court's decision to sentence a father who severely abused his three daughters to only 18 months in prison.
The Council for the Welfare of the Child has urged the prosecution to appeal, saying that such a light sentence constitutes "a kind of encouragement to those who abuse their children."
The Tel Aviv District Court found last month that Pinhas Traskonov repeatedly beat his two older daughters, aged two and four, when they disrupted his television viewing. Once, for instance, he pushed the four-year-old, causing her to fall and break a tooth, then kept her home from nursery school so that her teacher would not notice.
But the most serious incident began one evening when, after drinking vodka, Traskonov and his wife went out with the four-year-old, leaving the two-year-old and the three-month-old alone in the house. While out, they continued to drink, and when they returned at 3 A.M., the wife beat the baby, causing a large bruise around her eye.
Two days later, the wife kicked the baby in the head, causing cranial bleeding, and when Traskonov returned that evening, she told him that the baby had died. Traskonov then shook the infant, hit her in the face and threw her at the sofa. Only then did he call for help, but efforts to revive the baby failed.
The mother was charged with manslaughter and Traskonov with abuse. Traskonov confessed to the charges.
Judge Zvi Gurfinkel decided not to convict Traskonov of abusing the baby after her death, because, the judge wrote, he was apparently trying to revive her. The father's other actions were indeed grave, Gurfinkel continued, but he had two points in his favor: his confession and, "primarily, the fact that as a result of this tragic incident, his baby daughter died, not due to any action of his; his wife was arrested... and his two older daughters were taken from him... All this constitutes punishment for the defendant."
Therefore, he sentenced Traskonov to 18 months in prison, meaning that he will be out within a year.
Head of the Noga Legal Center for Victims of Crime, Dr. Dana Pugach, said the verdict joins a long list of similar "laughable" sentences handed down to parents who abused their children. She added that she is eagerly awaiting passage of a bill now under discussion in the Knesset that would limit judges' freedom to be lenient in such cases.