If the goal is to raise your child to be a respectful member of society then the objective of disciplining a child is to instill values in that child so that when decisions come up between choosing between right and wrong the choice is based on that child wanting to be a respectful member of society. If the decision is based purely on fearing punishment then you have failed, as the child's decision is not based on him wanting to do the right thing, it is based on his view of the probability of getting caught and punished for his actions. This leads to the mindset that the less chance of getting caught a certain action has the more "acceptable" that action becomes, where as a child that has been truly disciplined, aka educated and taught, doesn't require such a "threat" to be present to understand why the right choice is the right choice.
1. A child's brain is essentially a learning computer until the age of 5. The neural net expansion is staggering and it is a fact beyond all facts that children at this age are god like at associative/mimicry learning. When you strike a child as a response to a negative action then it is programmed into his brain that physical violence = proper response to solving conflict, period. If you think your child's brain just magically stops working whenever you decide to punish your child then you are quite simply a moron. You screw up and say "####" just a handful of times in front of a toddler and every parent or anyone who has been around kids knows that you are most likely going to be spending a few weeks training your kid to not yell out "####" from then on, yet you hit your child to "teach" him and think this is going to instill the association in him that hitting people = the WRONG thing for him to do? Or if you have trouble with this imagine if I told you I'm teaching my child to speak in a polite manor by cussing his ass out every time he doesn't. That is EXACTLY what your retarded ass is doing when you attempt to "discipline" your toddler by doing the exact thing to them that you hope they never do to anyone else. Even worse is that such discipline is such a startling and simplistic act that the association is just that much easily engraved and permanently altering.
2. Animals with brains less advanced than a retarded toddler, which have a million years of genetic instinct to go into beast mode and rip the throats out of other animals while they are still alive, among other incredibly beastly things that animals do, are constantly trained to basically do whatever the hell a human trainer wants, including to NOT do all of the stuff they have crazy instincts to want to do, without ever being beat. Go ahead and try to make the argument that the most advanced learning computer on the planet can't comprehend what every other lesser animal on the planet can, especially when said learning computer (aka a child's brain) does EXACTLY that, times a factor of ten, regarding every other single thing it is taught in comparison to said animals.
To say that you are incapable of molding/training a child... from the beginning of their birth, when they are useless blobs of blubber, without having to use FORCE and VIOLENCE on them is astonishing and ####ing lazy on your part as a parent.
3. If physically striking children works to instill discipline and correct behavior then why isn't it utilized in all other areas of your child's development? If it was a successful tool for promoting development you would be slapping your child every time they made a grammar blunder. If every other aspect of teaching you give to your child requires no physical striking when mistakes are made then have fun explaining why the teaching of right and wrong "benefits" from such a "corrective" measure while other areas of instruction don't.
IN SHORT, if you think what this man did was anywhere NEAR acceptable, you are wrong. no doubt about it.
She told him she would release the tape and he told her to go ahead. 
Do I believe she really wants him to "get help" like she said? NO. She wants revenge because whatever deal they had wasn't working out anymore. And she got it. Because just about anyone can see that it is entirely innapropriate for him to preside over child abuse cases when it has been shown he is completely unable to control his own temper and violent urges.