Portugal rules was OK to slap mentally ill child

LISBON, Apr 13 (Reuters) A Portuguese court's ruling that it was not illegal to slap a mentally ill child in a care home caused outrage with a rights group saying the decision was like something from the Middle Ages.

The Supreme Court of Justice, Portugal's second highest court, found a care home worker guilty of abusing a child by strapping him down to his bed but cleared her of physical abuse, including slapping, which was not deemed criminal.

The woman, who worked in the port of Setubal, was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence, the court's vice president, Manuel Duarte Soares, told Reuters.

''She was found guilty of having tied him to the bed in order not to disturb the other children,'' Duarte Soares said yesterday.

''There were two other children (cases), which were not sufficiently serious to be considered criminal. They were slappings, slight bodily aggressions.'' Humberto Santos, head of the Portuguese Association of the Disabled, said the failure to find the slappings illegal was alarming.

''This is a description of the situation during the Middle Ages,'' he told the Lusa news agency.

REUTERS DH BD0425