The video, captured by overhead security cameras and posted this week on social media, sparked shock and outrage over its brutality and the ages of the elder victims: a 65-year-old woman and 68-year-old man from Scotland.
“We have arrested three of the four suspects and have issued an arrest warrant for the other one who is still on the loose,” said Col Chaiyakorn Sriladecho, chief of Hua Hin police. They are expected to appear in court before next week.
“The men say they are sorry and that they wouldn’t have done this if they weren’t drunk,” he added.
The three men were named as Suphatra Baithong, Yingyai Saengkham-in, both aged 32, and Siwa Noksri, 20.
In the clip, the family is seen walking down a crowded street in the beach town of Hua Hin on the evening of April 13, amid festivities for the Thai New Year.
An altercation breaks out with a group of men on the street who punch all three in the face, kick their bodies and stomp on their faces in an attack that lasts about two minutes.
The attack stops only when all three victims are seen lying apparently unconscious on the ground.
As the gang disappears, bystanders come to their aid.
Col Chaiyakorn said the attack started after “the son accidentally bumped into one of the Thai men”.
The 43-year-old son and his father suffered head injuries requiring stitches, he said. The mother was more severely injured, suffering a build-up of fluid in the brain that was removed, he said.
“The hospital is still holding her for observation for serious head and eye injuries,” said Col Chaiyakorn.
The incident just made the headlines in Thailand after the British media, namely The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Mirror, reported it yesterday (Apr 27).
The attack is just the latest brutal assault on foreign tourists, which contribute to 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
In March, four French tourists were assaulted on the island of Koh Kut as they walked to dinner. Among them were a mother and daughter who were both raped.
Two British backpackers were murdered on Koh Tao in 2014. Autopsies showed the couple, a young man and woman, had been severely beaten and the woman raped.
Two Myanmar migrants were convicted of the crime based on DNA evidence that rights groups say was questionable.
Read original story and see video here.