The Church of Scotland has called for an outright ban on smacking children.

Commissioners at the General Assembly voted in favour of calling on Holyrood to remove the defence of “justifiable assault” from law.

The Church said the move would grant young people under 16 the same rights as adults.

Read more: Children who are smacked 'are more likely to be abused'

Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, convener of the Church and Society Council, said children must not be subjected to any violence.

A report by the council stated: “If this defence was to be removed it would not create a new criminal offence.

“It would simply mean that adults and children had the same legal protection against violence.

The Herald:

“Legal systems have usually restricted parents' rights over their children to some extent by banning extreme physical harm, and allowing state authorities to intervene in order to protect children.

“Yet the state generally accepts that parents have a right and responsibility to bring up children within their own, inherited value system, provided those values do not offend the norms of the wider community.

“Where the rights of parents and the needs of children conflict, the trend is increasingly to attach more weight to the right of the child to be protected from harm.”

Read more: Why parents should welcome a smacking ban

Rev Hilda Smith told the assembly: "I think we are going to see loving parents standing in the dock charged with assault."

Another, Rev Michael Scoular, said that "sometimes the only language a bully will listen to is the language they will understand".

Miss Rohi Shah, of Edinburgh presbytery, asked the assembly if it was comfortable looking children who attended in the eye and "saying you do not have the same rights as us".

Read more: Study finds smacking damages children in long term

Commissioners decided by 275 votes by 259 that corporal punishment of children must be recognised as a violent act and violence is damaging to mental and physical health.