Texas judge defends himself , his own daughter uploaded the abuse video to Youtube

In this March 17, 2005, photo Hillary Adams, the daughter of Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams, practices the piano at her home in Rockport, Texas. Williams Adams told a Corpus Christi television station the video secretly recorded in 2004 looks “worse than it is.” The video shows Adams violently whipping his daughter, Hillary, in the legs more than a dozen times, while she screams and refuses to turn over on a bed to be beaten. Photo: The Caller-Times, Rachel Denny Clow / AP

Texas judge defends himself , his own daughter uploaded the abuse video to Youtube

A Texas judge who was filmed beating his teenage daughter in a video she later uploaded to YouTube has defended his reasons for attacking her, and claimed she only released the footage because he threatened to take away her car.


Hillary Adams, who suffers from axatic cerebral palsy, uploaded the video of her father William Adams whipping her, entitled "Family law judge beats own daughter for using the internet, please spread" to YouTube last week.

Ms Adam claimed her father attacked her because she had illegally downloaded music onto her computer.

In the opening seconds of the graphic video, Judge Adams is heard telling his wife: "Go get the belt. The big one. I'm going to spank her now."

When Hillary tries to fight him off, he yells: "Lay down or I'll spank you in your f---ing face".

He beats her with a belt while her mother tells her to "turn over like a 16-year-old and take it like a grown woman".

After a couple of minutes of intense beating, both parents leave the room and shut the door but return a minute later to continue the abuse.

Judge Adams will not be facing any criminal charges following the release of the tape because the video was filmed in 2004, and child abuse allegations become invalid after five years in the Aransas County District.

In a statement released on Thursday, Judge Adams defended his reasons for beating his daughter and questioned her motives for uploading the disturbing footage.

"If the public must know, just prior to the YouTube upload, a concerned father shared with his 23-year-old daughter that he was unwilling to continue to… be her primary source of financial support," the statement said.

"Hillary warned her father if he reduced her financial support and took away her Mercedes automobile, which her father had provided, he would live to regret it. The post was then uploaded."

But Ms Adams claims she had no single reason for posting the tape, rather she was sick of years of abuse.

"It wasn't any, you know, huge happening or anything. I just told him I had the video and he didn't seem to think anything of it and basically dared me to post it," she told the US Today Show.

She had not published the video for seven years because she did not want to be a minor under his care when it went public, she added.

Her mother, who has been divorced from Judge Adams for four years, also appeared in the television interview.

"I was completely brainwashed and controlled, " she said.

"I did everything that he did. When I leave the room he is telling me what to say, what I do."