Dad ends up in jail cell after smashing teen daughter's phone
What started as an argument over a missing chocolate bar has landed a single father in a jail cell.
The NSW father of three who wants to be known only as ‘Andrew’, spoke to A Current Affair on Friday to explain how an argument escalated when his 13-year-old daughter denied taking chocolate.
Andrew said that his daughter threw a “typical teenager tantrum” when he tried to send her to her room and remove her mobile phone as punishment for taking the treat.
"She's struggling with me, and she's pushed me, we've both fallen," he told ACA.
Andrew said he grabbed a nearby ladder to stop himself from falling during the scuffle, which shattered a ceiling light, sending glass everywhere and as his daughter “stormed to the kitchen”, she cut her foot on the broken glass.
After insisting her father hand over her mobile phone, Andrew said he threatened to smash it.
"I said, I'll smash your phone if you keep carrying on, it's a privilege, not a right,” he said before throwing the phone to the floor.
"As a parent, you've got to follow through, so I did," he added.
After he had destroyed the teenager’s phone, Andrew claimed his daughter called his mother and then dialled Triple Zero.
"I ended up grabbing the phone off her, and I was speaking to the lady on Triple Zero, and she's like, 'put your daughter back on', and wouldn't even listen to me," Andrew told ACA.
That evening Andrew was charged with assault and malicious damage, and spent the night upset in a jail cell.
When Andrew faced a magistrate over the charges, he claims the magistrate called the incident a “complete and utter waste of time," and quashed the assault charges.
Andrew remains on a good behaviour bond and said that he hasn’t seen his daughter in four months since the incident.
“I just want to give her a cuddle, I want to tell her I don't blame her,” he said.
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