A father was charged with child abuse after a neighbor posted a video allegedly showing him kicking and beating his 2-year-old son with a broom until it broke.
Police arrested Jirawat Supawimol, 26, late Monday night after his neighbor Piroon Tutubthim, posted security camera footage of the assault online.
“We will not rest with this case. And thank you to the good citizens who helped out a 2-year-old who was being beaten by his very own father,” Maj. Adisak Kaewwongsa said last night.
Col. Kittinat Talooylak said that Jirawat confessed to having beat his son out of “impulsive rage.” Jirawat was released temporarily.
Piroon also handed the CCTV footage over to police as evidence. Piroon, who lives on Soi Thawi Watthana 9 in eastern Bangkok, uploaded three videos Sunday after noticing he had captured footage of the assault which he said took place Saturday.
In one, a shirtless man can be seen using both arms to strike a young child with the broom’s handle at least 15 times. In the other videos, he delivers four roundhouse kicks to the child and punches him six times.
“I’m so sorry, kiddo. This is the most I can help you. I can’t do more than this because of Thai law. Good luck,” Piroon wrote in a caption to the videos.
“My tears fell down my face. I couldn’t take it,” he said in a Tuesday morning interview. “No one would be able to.”
He said the punishment is too light and doesn’t fit the severity of the crime.
“I felt relieved, but the punishment is light, so I feel like I can’t rest yet,” he added. “The law treats it as domestic violence, not violence committed in public. So he will come out after a couple months in prison. So the child will still be in the same cycle. This guy is violent.”
Child abuse in Thailand is punishable by three months in prison and a fine of 30,000 baht.
As of Tuesday Piroon’s three videos (warning: disturbing violence) had been watched nearly 1.5 million times and met with wide outrage.
Chalermrat Jingjit, 24, Jirawat’s wife and the boy’s mother, was also seen at the police station in a distressed state. They have four other children, some of which were born to another woman.
Neungruthai Somsee, a social services worker at the police station when Jirawat was arrested, said the boy was taken for medical treatment and is now in a family care center.
Adisak said anyone witnessing child abuse should report it to the police.
