A distraught mother claims two Policemen beat up her 17-year-old son after arresting him.

She has now launched a formal complaint against the Bermuda Police Service sergeant and constable.

The Smith's Parish woman told The Royal Gazette that she wished to make her complaint public because of her concerns for the treatment of other children at the hands of the Police.

She declined to be named in order to protect her son's identity.

The mother said her son was arrested for obstructing plain-clothed Police officers as they searched a group of people on Devon Springs Road in Devonshire on March 18.

When her son returned home after being released on $500 Police bail, she said she saw his face was swollen and marked.

Asked what had happened, her son told her he was punched about the face and body by two of the Police officers as they took him to Hamilton Police Station after arresting him.

Police beat up teen -- claim This led her to file a complaint with the Police and have staff at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital examine and record her son's injuries. She also had them photographed.

A Police spokeswoman confirmed that a complaint was received from the woman but declined to comment further on the matter as it had gone before the independent Police Complaints Authority.

However, she noted that an initial complaint was raised by the man's father as he bailed him from Police custody on the night of March 18.

Police officers on duty offered to handle the complaint immediately and have the man's injuries photographed and treated and verified by hospital staff but were turned down.

The mother lodged the complaint the following day.

She stressed that her outrage was not over the Police arresting her son, but their alleged treatment of him.

And she said she was going public with her information because she wanted to warn other parents about the treatment their children could receive at the hands of the force.