Banning smacking 'risks causing rise in crimes involving children, including rape'

He said parents will want to be “convinced that that’s not going to happen in Scotland.”

Mr Larzelere, a professor of human development and family science at Oklahoma State University, made the controversial comments as he gave evidence to Holyrood’s equalities committee.

In written evidence to MSPs, he said the number of alleged rapes of children under the age of 15 in Sweden “increased from 24 in 1981 to 1,762 in 2010, more than a 73-fold increase”.

He added: “Although increased willingness to report rapes may have accounted for part of these increases, some of this 73-fold increase is likely because a small, but increasing number of boys never learn to accept ‘No’ from their mothers or from others objecting to what they want.

“I have yet to see any explanation of these rape statistics from smacking-ban advocates, much less a convincing explanation.”

Pressed on this during the committee hearing, Mr Larzelere appeared to accept there was no evidence of a direct causal link.

But he insisted that if he was a parent in Scotland, “I would want an answer to that question to be convinced that that’s not going to happen in Scotland”.

Questioning the academic, Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said he had two young sons. He added: “My wife and I have never hit them. Should we be anxious about their increased propensity to rape people?”

Mr Larzelere replied: “No. You and I are from better backgrounds – we have all the advantages, our children do too.

"So we need to make sure the conclusions we come to aren’t just imposing our parenting perspectives on everybody else who doesn't have the advantages that we have.”

He argued well-managed children don’t need smacking, “but kids who push the limits – those are the ones where parents need something to back up the modern discipline tactics we all prefer, when more defiant kids are pushing those limits and the milder things that we prefer aren’t working for that particular child”.

Mr Larzelere's written evidence insisted that between 1981 and 1994, the rate of physical abuse of children under the age of seven and of criminal assaults by minors against minors both increased by around 500% in Sweden.

Elsewhere, he said parents who no longer have the option of mild smacking are “more likely to get increasingly frustrated until they are likely to explode with severe verbal or physical violence”.

The academic told MSPs he was one of the world’s leading experts on smacking and previously served as one of three expert witnesses for Canada’s Attorney General’s office on a court case attempting to ban smacking.

He recommended Scotland look to Canada’s “middle of the road” example, where only severe forms of physical punishment are outlawed.

He said the goal is to use the mildest discipline tactic with children, but his research had found “non-physical consequences” can be just as harmful.

It came after Police Scotland told MSPs it supported the principle behind new legislation to ban smacking.

Chief Superintendent John McKenzie, head of safer communities, said the force backed children being handed the same rights as adults.

He was asked about Mr Larzelere’s evidence at an earlier session of the equalities committee, and said this was the first he had heard of the academic’s research.

He added: “I will with interest go back and read this piece of research and listen to the evidence session later on.

“But I have nothing to bring to this table to suggest that actually, it would impact negatively. And actually, there are other research programmes that would suggest it would impact positively.”

Mr McKenzie said evidence from elsewhere suggested there would be no rise in the number of parents being prosecuted if a ban was brought into force.