A man who was one of the first to be prosecuted under the child discipline law has been given the right to take an appeal to the country's highest court.
Jimmy Mason was found guilty of punching his four-year-old son in the face and pulling his ear in an incident in Christchurch in December 2007.
He was sentenced to nine months' supervision and ordered to attend anger management classes.
Earlier this year, Mason told the Court of Appeal the assault charge should have been divided into separate counts, and one of the jurors was not impartial. However, the court dismissed his appeal.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court indicated it would consider whether combining the allegations of punching the child and pulling his ear into one charge resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
