Legislator Says Officer Hit Him With Truncheon

Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan says he was deliberately attacked by a policeman during the clearance of protesters in Sheung Shui on Saturday evening.

He accused officers of using excessive force, saying it was particularly unnecessary as most protesters had already left the scene.

Wan said a teenage bystander was so scared by an officer's behaviour he had tried to escape by jumping from a bridge. Wan said that some other people manged to hold him and pull him back.

He said: "I was angry - furious - and I approached the officer and said: 'You almost killed a youngster. Do you have any conscience?'

Wan said the policeman then pushed him with his shield. "Suddenly some other officers came over and during the turmoil, the officer who had pushed me hit my forehead with his baton. I think he did it on purpose, for revenge.

"My injury is quiet serious. You see my eyebrow? It is almost egg-sized."

However in a statement the police said the young man Wan referred to "was suspected of obstructing the advance of Police cordon line". The statement said that when officers approached him to make an enquiry, he ran off, before climbing over railings and trying to jump off the footbridge.

It said officers immediately grabbed the man and rescued him. He was later arrested for unlawful assembly.