THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190448
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 89 lines
When his teenage stepdaughter Carmen became surly and uncooperative last March, Ashley Holley Jr. tried to use fatherly persuasion to change her behavior.
Holley sat the 13-year-old middle school student down and talked to her about the importance of helping her mother and getting along with the rest of the family. Carmen has 10 brothers and sisters.
Holley, 40, said he took time off from his job at Newport News Shipbuilding to talk to Carmen.
But the problem persisted, so Holley decided to try another approach. On March 19, Holley spanked Carmen with a paddle a little larger than a yardstick.
Holley considered it an act of discipline, well within his rights as a father: a difficult but sometimes necessary element of rearing a child entering the frequently rebellious years of adolescence.
It turned out to be a decision that ripped his family apart and could alter Holley's life forever.
Three days after the spanking, Holley found himself charged with felony child endangerment, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Judge J. Davis Reed of the Virginia Beach Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court removed Carmen from the Holley household. She went to live with a friend's family in Hampton until June, when she was allowed to come back home. But when Carmen returned, Reed ordered Holley to have no contact with Carmen until the case is resolved in court. So he left to live with family members in Portsmouth.
Holley is scheduled to go to trial before Circuit Court Judge Frederick B. Lowe Sept. 11.
Holley, who says he has an otherwise clean record, considers the court's actions outrageous.
``One good spanking does not mean child abuse,'' Holley said this week. ``They should investigate thoroughly before breaking up the family, and when they find it is not what they think, they should quickly put the family back together.''
His wife agrees.
``That was only a whipping,'' said Felicia Holley, 33, Carmen's mother. ``Can a law be made to protect parents who are just disciplining children? You know, draw a line where this is discipline and this is abuse.''
Carmen, who has refused to give a statement to authorities, said her dad did nothing wrong.
``I want my dad back, and I want my family back the way it was,'' said Carmen.
According to a report filed by Detective D.M. Brown of the Virginia Beach Police Department, Holley spanked Carmen three separate times on the morning of the incident. He used a wooden paddle that was 2.5 feet in length, three inches wide and one-half inch thick, according to the report.
Two days later, while Carmen was at Landstown Middle School in Virginia Beach, she said she fell on the asphalt playground and scraped her buttocks. She visited the school nurse. While being treated by the nurse, she also mentioned that her father had spanked her.
The school immediately reported the bruises to Child Protective Services.
Rebecca Wimer, a Virginia Beach social worker, called in the Virginia Beach Police Department, according to Brown's report.
Carmen told authorities the injuries to her buttocks had nothing to do with the spanking, but were the result of her fall.
George McGovern, principal of Landstown Middle School, said he did not remember the incident, and even if he did, school authorities do not comment on such matters.
Wimer did not return a telephone call on Thursday.
Prosecutor William Monroe said charges were filed because authorities felt the injuries suffered by Carmen went beyond normal disciplinary actions taken by parents.
Holley admitted that ``I hit her pretty hard, I can't argue with that point. But I am a good person, and I am just trying to raise my daughter.''
Parents, he said, are in a Catch-22 when authorities react this way. Permissive parents are condemned for allowing their children to run wild. When too strict, they are prosecuted in court.
``I just don't want my daughter to end up in the streets,'' he said. ``I feel it is a little too far-fetched to get somebody in trouble when I have never done anything wrong.''
``There are a whole lot of grownups out there trying to raise kids the right way, and a whole lot of grownups who are trying to hurt kids,'' Holley said. ``The authorities need to separate the good from the bad.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BETH BERGMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
Carmen Loveless, at front left, sits with several of her 10 siblings
and her mother, Felicia Holley, just behind her to the right.
Color photo
Ashley Holley Jr.
KEYWORDS: DISCIPLINE CHILD ABUSE PARENTAL AUTHORITY by CNB