Yellowknife (Mar 04/05) - Charges against a woman accused of brutally disciplining her daughter have been stayed.

"Cases involving children are always agonizing," said Crown attorney Paul Falvo Feb. 23 after he decided not to pursue two counts of assault causing bodily harm against the woman.

The decision to stay the charges came after the eight-year-old girl testified she made up the allegations of abuse against her mother because she was "mad."

The testimony was in stark contrast to a videotaped statement the girl made to police last fall where she said her mother hit her several times with a plastic broomstick for not doing her chores.

The girl told police she was struck about 20 times and showed them a bruise on her arm. She said the beating made it difficult for her to write.

She also detailed other incidents to police.

The girl told police she was petrified of her mother and worried "she will take a knife and cut into my body."

"Sometimes (I think) my mom is going to kill me," she said.

Falvo played the tape to a hushed courtroom after the girl testified she made up the allegations of abuse.

Falvo suggested the girl -- who was living at home with both parents in the months leading up to the trial - may have been coerced into changing her story on the stand.

Under questioning from Falvo however, the girl maintained that the allegations were untrue and her mother had only "pinched" her arm.

"I didn't know what I said would cause so much trouble," the girl said.

She was accompanied to court by her mother and her father. In between breaks, she chatted with them in the hallway and at one point handed her mother a drawing.

Outside of the courtroom, Falvo said he could not discuss the reasons behind his decision to seek a stay -- a measure that would allow the Crown to re-lay the charges within a year.

Generally speaking though, cases with an unco-operative complainant can be difficult to prove, he said.