Dad with "shared custody" charged with beating 14-year-old son (Decatur, Tennessee)

Dad is identified as DOUGLAS BARNETT HARPER. Though Daddy was never married to the mother, he didn't seem to have much trouble getting "shared custody" and keeping the battered boy for over five days at a time. 

http://decaturdaily.com/stories/Father-charged-after-police-say-he-beat-son-with-switches,111678

Father charged after police say he beat son with switches

By Seth Burkett
The Decatur Daily

A man beat his 14-year-old son repeatedly with bundles of switches, Decatur police said following his arrest today.

Douglas Barnett Harper, 47, of 1001 Moores Lane S.W., was being held in Decatur City Jail on a charge of child abuse. He was to be transferred to Morgan County Jail and held in lieu of $40,000 bail.

The boy’s mother, who was not married to Harper but shared custody, reported the suspected abuse when she regained custody of him Dec. 16, five days after the alleged incident, said investigator Lt. Rick Archer, who investigated the case along with Morgan County Department of Human Resources.

The mother took the teen to Decatur Morgan Hospital’s Parkway Campus, where he was treated for an “excessive number of welts on his shoulders, back, arms, buttocks and legs, some of which broke the skin leaving open wounds,” Archer said in a statement.

Archer said the whipping “went far beyond any appropriate form of punishment or discipline.”

Officers arrested Harper at his Decatur workplace without incident.