Mother arrested after boy, 12, told police she beat him with a rattan cane

Police have arrested a woman on suspicion of child abuse after she allegedly hit her 12-year-old son with a rattan cane in a Hong Kong flat.The police force said it received a report at 2.48pm on Saturday from a boy in Wong Tai Sin who complained he had been beaten by his mother.The boy, whose shoulder was red and swollen, was later taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei for treatment after police arrived at the public housing flat on Tsui Fung Street.Officers conducted an initial investigation and arrested the 41-year-old mother on suspicion of “ill-treatment or neglect by those in charge of a child or young person”.She was detained while the Wong Tai Sin district crime squad conducted further investigations.The report follows several cases of alleged child abuse or neglect in recent weeks, including a couple arrested earlier this month after their one-year-old son fell to his death from a high-rise residential building in Tsuen Wan.