Couple barred from fostering after admitting they smack their daughter 'as a last resort'

So when chartered surveyor David Bowen and his wife Heather applied, they were somewhat surprised to be rejected.

Married for 11 years, the professional couple were even more startled to learn the reason – they had admitted they sometimes resorted to smacking their own child.

Their nine-year-old daughter Emma, they said, was occasionally chastised physically as a last resort, in accordance with their beliefs and within British law.

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But Somerset County Council – which says on its website that foster parents can be homosexual, disabled, on benefits, have a criminal record, be of any age, religion and gender, and be married or single – ruled the Bowens were unsuitable.

Mr Bowen, 41, is a school governor while his 47-year-old wife is a special needs adviser who has just been offered a job as a primary school teaching assistant.

They live in a four-bedroom semi-detached house in Taunton, Somerset, and attend church every Sunday.

Three years ago their second child, Jonathan, died shortly after birth with a rare skeletal condition. The couple failed to conceive again and decided to apply to foster.

Their application initially proceeded well and they said they were approved by the social worker and her line manager. It was only when their case went to the fostering panel last December that the council decided it had a problem with the use of physical chastisement.

Mr Bowen said: "It seems we have been excluded on the basis that we physically chastise our birth child, in accordance with our beliefs and UK law.

"To put this in perspective, our birth daughter is chastised physically only as a last resort among a whole range of other forms of behaviour management strategies which include rewards and sanctions.

"We have been made to feel we are bad parents and yet we do what hundreds of thousands of parents do as loving and responsible parents."

The Bowens say they agreed from the outset that, although they might smack their own child, they would not physically chastise any foster child placed in their care.

But on March 6 the panel met again and ruled the Bowens could not be foster carers.

Mrs Bowen said: "We are grateful that we have a beautiful daughter and our faith gives us much strength. But we feel a tremendous sense of loss that we are not allowed to complete our family and provide a loving to home to a child in need."

The Bowens have lodged an appeal and are consulting lawyers about a possible judicial review.

Mr Bowen said: "If councils are permitted to reject parents for fostering or adoption on the basis that they physically chastise birth children, then thousands of damaged children will be denied access to perfectly good homes and parents.

"Surely this is not putting children first."

Until four years ago, parents had full rights to use corporal punishment under laws dating from the 1860s, which allowed "reasonable chastisement". But the 2004 Children Act removed that defence from parents who injure their children.

Injuries which can now bring an assault charge can be as slight as a bruise, reddening of the skin, or "psychological" harm.

It remains legal for a parent to smack their child provided there is no injury.

The council defended its decision by saying it was "potentially unfair" to expect the Bowens to operate different approaches to their own child and any foster children.

Linda Barnett, head of children's services, said: "Somerset has a Foster Carer's Agreement which describes our belief about parenting.

"Where carers have a very strong personal belief that differs from the Foster Carer Agreement, it is potentially unfair to expect them to operate to a set of guidelines which conflicts with this.

"This brings into sharp focus the issue of whether they will be able to work alongside the local authority in caring for other people's children."