Child 'Waterboarded' By Dad Over Her ABCs

12:03pm UK, Monday February 08, 2010

 

Adam Arnold

Sky News Online

 

A US soldier has been accused of "waterboarding" his four-year-old daughter because she would not recite the alphabet.

 

 

Joshua Tabor, 27, allegedly pushed the child's head under water face-up in the kitchen sink at his house.

Tabor told a police officer he and his girlfriend "held her down on the counter and submerged her head into the water three or four times until the water came around her forehead and jawline", according to court documents.

The suspect said that he handed out this punishment to the youngster for "refusing to say her letters".

Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, has been charged with second-degree assault of a child and is due to appear in court on February 16.

The suspect told police his daughter was afraid of water "and was squirming around trying to get away from the water". The reports said: "Joshua did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this form of punishment."

He was irate, intoxicated, and walking around the neighbourhood with his Kevlar helmet threatening to break windows.  Joshua Tabor's girlfriend talks to police

The controversial practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown - but President Barack Obama has since banned the practice.

Police went to Tabor's house in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm after his girlfriend reported he "was irate, intoxicated, and walking around the neighbourhood with his Kevlar helmet threatening to break windows".

She told officers that Tabor beat the child. The youngster's back was reportedly covered in bruises.

The girlfriend also claimed the child had locked herself in a cupboard because she was afraid of her father.

Police Sergeant Rob Carlson confirmed the alleged abuse happened because the little girl would not recite her "ABCs", according to police reports.

Tabor has now been released from jail after posting $10,000 (about £6,400) bail.

He is restricted to the base at Lewis-McChord as a condition of his release and cannot have any contact with his girlfriend or children.

The youngster has been taken into custody by Child Protective Services, a police report said.