Brits debate slap after pharmacy smack A pharmacist's smacking of a child has left a mark on British society. Photo: Stock Source: news.com.au DEBATE about whether it is OK to slap someone else's child has been common in Australia since Christos Tsiolkas's novel The Slap was published in 2008. But now the British are getting in on the act after a shop assistant slapped a three-year-old girl who knocked some items off a shelf in a chemist. Angela Cropley demanded an official apology from the Boots store after a female pharmacist in her 50s smacked her daughter Lora on the bottom. When Ms Cropley first complained the manager said: "It was only a tap." "Nobody has the right to punish my own daughter - just me and her dad but we would not do it like that," the Lincolnshire mother told UK tabloid The Daily Mail. "It was hard enough to shunt her (Lora) forward into the display," the mum told the Daily Mirror. I knew it wasn't right. Ms Cropley eventually received a letter of apology from Boots after she went to the police. The apology said the staff member's action was "a gesture of empathy." The founder of parenting website Netmums.com said the incident was "shocking." "Shop staff wouldn't slap an adult who knocked over a display so why hit a child," Siobhan Freegard said. A British legal expert told the Daily Mail smacking someone else's child was unlawful and likely to be considered an assault. Tsiolkas's novel, set in Melbourne, was turned into a hit eight-part drama series that screened on ABC TV in 2011.