Family life:

A woman alleged to have strangled and battered her mother in a row over table salt has been acquitted. Ami Avanti (46) was charged with non-fatal strangulation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm following an incident at her mother’s home on August 11 last year.

The alleged victim told police at the time her daughter had punched, kicked and choked her after the lid of a salt cellar had come loose when Avanti was trying to season her food. However, during a contest at Laganside Magistrates Court in Belfast this month she was acquitted of both charges due to issues around the evidence.

The court heard no statement of complaint was made by the defendant’s mother, but the prosecution proceeded with the body-worn footage obtained by police who attended the incident. The footage, which was played to the court, depicted Avanti’s elderly mother in a nightdress struggling for breath and with heavy bruising on her arms.

“He’s been drinking and had me by the throat in the hallway,” she tells officers, adding: “I managed to get away from him but it’s like a light switch, one minute everything is OK and the next it’s really bad.” The officer interjects: “He’s asked me to call him she,” to which the mother responds: “Yes.”

Ah. So this news outlet lied repeatedly about the defendant, pretending the case was about a woman battering her mother when in fact it was a man.

It does make a difference you know. Men can hit harder, much harder. Men can do more damage. Men are more terrifying. Men losing their tempers are way more terrifying. It does matter that this was a man punching kicking and choking his mother. News outlets should not lie about men who beat up women.