Probe into boy's arrest

POLICE are conducting an internal review following an eruption of anger on a street where mobile phone footage appears to capture an officer aiming a punch at a boy of 15.

- JOHN SCHEERHOUT

In all police arrested five boys, aged between 13 and 15, amid a tense stand-off with residents. It followed reports of anti-social behaviour on Briarfield Road in Burnage last week when a brick was said to have been thrown at a car. Mobile phone footage shared on social media and with the M.E.N. captured much of the drama, including the arrest of a boy of 15 who was forced onto the ground by officers.

One clip appears to show an officer aiming a downward punch towards the boy before the teen is handcuffed and his legs are bound.

It's not clear if the blow struck the boy, who is then captured screaming and struggling as he is carried into a waiting police van. He was arrested on suspicion of assaulting emergency service workers and later released under investigation.

Pictures taken later in hospital show the boy, who the M.E.N. is not naming, with cuts and grazes to his back, arm and head.

His mother, 35, a florist, told the M.E.N. her son has been diagnosed with ADHD and had never been arrested before. She has lodged a formal complaint alleging her son was attacked by police.

She said: "I'm absolutely disgusted. We put our trust in these people and these are the people we pay our taxes for. Not only have they physically assaulted him, but afterwards I could not locate him. They wouldn't tell me where he was taken. It was totally unnecessary force."