HOGANSVILLE, Georgia, USA: A former principal of Hogansville Elementary School has been found guilty of simple battery for slapping a five-year-old autistic boy at the school.

Peggy Smith, who faces a possible 12 months in jail and a US$1,000 fine at sentencing on April 14, admitted she had slapped the child after he head-butted her chin and hit her in the ear.

"I’d never done anything like this before and I don’t know why I did it," Smith testified at her non-jury trial in March.

State Court Judge Jeannette Little had delayed issuing a verdict, saying she wanted to review case law submitted by both sides.

"I’m obviously disappointed ... There’s no better word for it," said Smith’s attorney, David Dunham of Griffin.

The judge called on the morning of April 9 to inform him of the verdict.

"That’s a shock," Troup County schools Superintendent Roy Nichols said as soon as he heard.. "There’s no way I would ever have anticipated such a ruling. I’m not a judge or lawyer, but I thought pre-meditation and intent to do harm was necessary. But I guess I’m wrong."

At the trial, solicitor Jack Kirby had compared it to slapping an old person or a pregnant woman, adding: "The condition of the victim makes it all the more important that it be treated seriously."

On October 23, the student had been playing outside and threw a tantrum when a teacher took him back into the building. Smith sat in a chair and pulled him on to her lap, telling him to calm down, but "he butted me with his head under my chin," Smith testified. "It was pretty hard. It hurt my whole jaw. I slid out of the chair and laid my hands over his. I was on my knees in front of him, and he tried to bite me. He jerked my hand away and hit me in the ear. I hit him on the side of the face."

Dunham called the slapping an "involuntary, instantaneous action" that was in self-defence. He said his client was a victim of prosecutorial "second-guessing and hindsight."

Smith, 50, has been reassigned as a technical support specialist.