The dad who attacked a boy allegedly bullying his step-daughter says he regrets his actions but ‘got the job done’.
Mark Bladen, 53, was giving the boy a ‘good old fashioned talking to’ when the boy smiled at him, making him see red.
Bladen was caught on camera lunging at the teenager at a skate park in Brisbane, Australia.
Here’s the clip:
According to news.com.au, Bladen said he wanted to belittle the boy in front of his friends, ‘the same as he did’ to his step-daughter.
Mr Bladen said he was ‘not proud’ of his actions but he got the ‘job done’, because his step-daughter was ‘no longer being bullied’.
He said on the day of the attack, his step-daughter called him in tears:
She was crying, she was upset.
She said he was at the skate park, and I said ‘that’s it, I’m going to talk to him’. I walked with purpose, had an aggressive demeanour.
After he spoke to the boy, Bladen said he was ‘very, very close to leaving, but then he [the boy] smiled at me’.
Bladen added:
I snapped, and the next thing I knew my hands were around his neck.
According to reports, the 15-year-old boy suffered ‘bruising to the throat and scratches to his limbs’ telling a court he was the victim of bullying himself, and suffered nightmares following the attack.
Bladen said while it was ‘job done’ because the bullying had stopped, he regretted his actions, adding:
We live in a day of PC, political correctness, and I hate it. I absolutely hate it. When I was young, a lady was treated as a lady. It should be the same now.
It’s not hard to have respect for somebody. I’m a great believer in karma. You give respect, you get respect back.
If I could go back in time I wouldn’t have been in that situation to start with. It was a stupid thing to do, stupid.
Bladen also warned other parents, urging them not to make the same mistake he did. His wife believes he only acted as ‘any parent would’.
She said:
His initial intention was to go down there and speak to him and I was okay with that. But looking back, what he did was not right.
Mr Bladen’s daughter has claimed the boy relentlessly bullied her about her physical appearance.
She said:
(He) called me names like gorilla and King Kong, he would buy me shaving cream for Christmas so that I would shave.
Mr Bladen spoke out about his step-daughter’s torment and how bullying can affect children, adding:
I would go into her room and have a look at tissues everywhere and I would be wondering when she had tissues.
As a parent, you don’t know what’s happening in their room. You don’t even want to go into their room thinking they need their privacy. But under that roof, the privacy is not their privacy.
It’s the whole world in there looking at them and telling them what they can and can’t do, and judging people.
Bladen pleaded guilty to one count of assault occasioning bodily harm in a Brisbane court on March 20. He was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and $500 in compensation. No conviction was recorded.
