A 47-year-old Hong Kong man has been arrested in connection to a viral video which depicts the beating of a two-year-old girl.
Footage of the incident went viral after it was posted online last night. In the clip, a man can be seen shouting at a toddler on a bed, “Put on your trousers!” while hitting her, throwing her around the bed, and elbowing her. The person filming the video, who is reported to be the child’s mother, appears to be crying and begs him to stop.
As the man continues to beat the diaper-clad child, the woman says, “Stop hitting her, you’ll kill her. Don’t hit her any more. I don’t have the energy to fight you, I can’t stop you any more.”
At around 1:30am today, police said they had traced the man to an apartment at Lok Wah North Estate, but found the flat to be empty. Lawmaker Roy Kwong told reporters and around 30 curious civilians on the scene that police had found a witness at the estate, however, who went to the police station to give a statement.
Ming Pao reports that the video was actually filmed last March in a flat in Sham Shui Po by a 26-year-old woman, who had sent the clip to a friend. It is reported that the friends recently got into a disagreement, resulting in the video being uploaded online yesterday.
At 1:45pm today, police said in a statement that they had arrested a man in relation to the case at Lok Wah North Estate. The man, a 47-year-old hairdresser surnamed Chan, was arrested on suspicion of ill-treatment or neglect of a child.
Police said the child, who is now around four years old, is healthy and well, and currently under the care of Po Leung Kuk, a social services organization. Chan and his girlfriend, the 26-year-old woman, were reportedly arrested last year over another child abuse case involving the same girl, but no charge were laid against them because police could not find sufficient evidence.
