A Hong Kong court has sentenced a foreign domestic helper to 12 weeks in jail for assaulting her employers’ two young children, including forcefully throwing an 11-month-old infant on a bed and hitting him while he was crying.
At her hearing at West Kowloon Court, the 52-year-old Filipino on Friday pleaded guilty to assaulting the two children on four occasions between June 8 and June 12 at her employers’ home.
CCTV installed at the residence showed the defendant hitting a two-year-old boy in the buttocks in a bedroom on June 8. Days after her first offence, the helper similarly spanked his 11-month-old sibling twice while the latter was crying.
On one occasion, she was seen throwing the baby onto his bed after she entered the bedroom and heard the infant crying loudly.
Principal Magistrate Ivy Chui Yee-mei reprimanded the defendant, saying her behaviour had endangered the children’s safety.
“Your employer trusted you to take care of the children, but you failed to do so,” she said in passing her sentence.
In a mitigating statement, the domestic helper’s defence lawyer said his client had shown remorse, adding the children had sustained only “superficial injuries”.
According to the facts read out in court, the defendant admitted to police that she “could not control herself” when she heard the baby crying.
The defendant was hired in 2022 to take care of her employers’ first child. She continued working for them after their second was born a year ago.
The children’s parents had set up security cameras in the living room and the infant’s bedroom, turning on a function that could detect sounds of crying.
The father received an alert when the baby was crying loudly on June 12, and subsequently discovered the defendant’s behaviour towards both children while reviewing the playback.
He reported the case to police the next day and sacked the domestic helper.
Magistrate Chui said the case involved a breach of trust and set the starting point for sentencing at six weeks for each offence, with two weeks from three of the four charges to be served consecutively.
