Hong Kong father threw son against wall and beat his head after boy short-changed him
Thrashing left the nine-year-old in hospital for a month, court told
A father of eight threw his nine-year-old son against a wall and beat his head with a plastic rod when the boy failed to give him enough change after going out to buy food, a court heard yesterday
The boy spent nearly a month in hospital last year recovering from the abuse.
Magistrate Veronica Heung Shuk-han said she would not rule out imprisoning the 50-year-old.
Your son could have died when you used the rod to hit him
“As a father, how could you do this over a small sum of change?” she asked. “Your son could have died when you used the rod to hit him.”
But she said she would also consider the father’s psychiatric condition and the family’s complicated background as she scheduled sentencing for March 24 and ordered a background and two psychiatric reports.
The father has been receiving psychiatric treatment in Castle Peak Hospital, Tuen Mun, since November.
Kowloon City Court was told the boy had returned to the family’s Sham Shui Po home from foster care for Lunar New Year on February 15, 2015. He went out to buy food but when he failed to hand over the correct change his father hurled him against the wall and onto a sofa before thrashing him with the plastic rod.
