A Sydney dad has escaped punishment after being dragged before the courts for allowing his under-aged daughter to get a tattoo.
Brad Victory, 45, permitted his 16-year-old daughter, Casey, to get a small dreamcatcher inked above her ankle and accompanied her to the appointment at Picton Tattoos in Sydney's south-west last year.
Under section 230 of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998, it's illegal to tattoo anyone under the age of 18 in New South Wales without written permission from a parent or guardian.
Yet Victory's ex-wife and Casey's mother, Nadene Rae Rees, was outraged when she discovered her daughter had been tattooed with her father's permission. She launched a private prosecution, and Victory was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
If convicted, Victory faced five years behind bars - but on Tuesday, the charges were dropped.
Speaking to the Nine Network news show A Current Affair, Victory claimed that Rees had been estranged from her daughter, now 17, for three years.
"I didn't think she needed to know because she doesn't have anything to do with Casey," he told the programme.
"I'll do anything for Casey. I would go to extremes to protect my daughter and all my kids. They mean the world to me."
Casey previously revealed to the programme that she never expected her desire for a tattoo - which she says symbolises her dreams for the future - would land her father in hot water.
Her dad also acknowledged that he wouldn't have agreed to the body art if he'd known the outcome.
"If I thought it was going to cause this much drama I would have waited until she was 18, and it would have saved me and her a lot of grief," he said.
Speaking to the Daily Mail Australia, Sydney attorney Sam Macedone said the case was highly unusual in a criminal court.
"To have a criminal prosecution, where one parent gives consent to his daughter to get a tattoo - which is quite legal - then I don't understand what this is all about," he said.
"Having this man charged with wounding his daughter or assaulting her is, in my mind, ridiculous."
