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Principal beats five-year-old with paddle, threatens mum with jail time for intervening

A distraught mother has shared a confronting video of a US primary school principal and assistant principal holding down her son while they smack him with a wooden paddle.

The five-year-old boy Thomas can be seen crying and screaming hysterically “no” and “mummy, help me” in the video which has been viewed more than three million times.

The teacher is seen wielding a large wooden paddle as she allegedly prepares to punish a five-year-old student. Source: Facebook
The teacher is seen wielding a large wooden paddle as she allegedly prepares to punish a five-year-old student. Source: Facebook

The boy’s mother Shana Marie Perez covertly recorded the shocking video on her phone while pretending to text, as she claims she was powerless to intervene the punishment for having too many days off school.

Ms Perez alleges the administrators at Jasper County Primary School in Georgia, in the US, said she would go to jail if the boy didn’t get a paddling and was instead suspended.

“They told me if he could not get a paddling, he would have to be suspended and if he got suspended for even one day I WILL go to jail for truancy,” she wrote on Facebook with the video.

“Jasper County made me do this ... I could not go to jail or my kids would have nothing ... I can’t take care of my kids in jail ... And I was not texting I was recording this ... I couldn’t do anything to stop them,” Ms Perez wrote.

The mother claims she was threatened to be sent to jail if she intervened. Source: Facebook
The mother claims she was threatened to be sent to jail if she intervened. Source: Facebook

In the disturbing video Thomas appears terrified by the two women, identified as principal Pam Edge and assistant principal Lynn McElheney, who restrain him while one holds a large wooden paddle between her legs.

Ms Perez told local news channel 11Alive News that medical issues caused Thomas to take 18 days of school this year and she had previously been arrested for truancy.

Georgia is one of America’s 19 states that still permitted spanking students.

NBC News reported students in the states that permitted corporal punishment were physically punished 166,807 times in the 2011-2012 school year - an average of 900 times each school day.

The Facebook video has been viewed more than three million times.

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