A 37-year-old woman, Maria R.S., has been arrested at a flat in Calle Manuel Azaña in Palma after a neighbour reported her apparently giving brutal beatings to both her children, aged just 8 and 6, National Police said yesterday.
Sources close to the investigation said that a call to Emergency Services number 091 had been received at 5.45pm last Wednesday from a resident in the same street located on the Levante industrial estate.
The caller had said that she had witnessed a neighbour apparently battering two young children, whom the caller assumed were her children. National Police were quick to attend the scene and call at the flat where the mother and her two children were living. Maria R.S. opened the door to the officers and allowed them inside.
In one of the rooms of the flat, officers came across two children who were showing clear signs of having apparently been beaten.
The smallest of the two was bleeding from the nose and his sister had bruising on various parts of the body. Both children appeared frightened. The mother was arrested on the spot and taken to the police station for questioning. Meanwhile, other officers remained with the children and eventually managed to track down a relative who was able to look after them on a temporary basis.
Police sources clarified that Maria R.S. had no previous police record, but that she herself had been lodging complaints with police about other local residents. The neighbour who had alerted police about Maria R.S.' treatment of her children told police that the mother had apparently grabbed her son fiercely and started beating him about the head.
Maria R.S. then allegedly set about her daughter and dragged both the children violently across the floor before punching them both.
Police are investigating whether the ill treatment was a one-off incident or whether it was habitual.
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