An Indonesian domestic worker was jailed for six months by the Eastern Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday on one count of concealing the birth of a child after leaving the newborn in a public toilet.
The 34-year-old domestic worker admitted she left her newborn baby girl in a public toilet in the Java Road market in North Point on Hong Kong Island, Ming Pao Daily reported.
The defense lawyer asked the court for leniency as the psychological reports showed the woman was a hard-working maid who had worked for two families in Hong Kong and her former employers both praised her performance and attitude.
The defense lawyer said she committed the crime under instructions from her boyfriend. She felt regret and had learned a lesson, he said, adding that the risk of her committing another crime was very low.
Judge Li Chi-ho said the defendant was a hardworking person and he believed she acted under great pressure when she left her baby. However, it was a serious crime, he said, and gave her a six-month jail sentence.
In November last year a fetus, only 24 weeks in the gestational age, was found clogging a sewer pipe beneath a bloodstained female cubicle in a public toilet in the Java Road market.
Police later arrested the woman at her employer’s home in the New Territories’ Tseung Kwan O district after tracking her down from CCTV footage and the transaction history on her Octopus card used for transportation.
Read: Indonesian maid admits she left newborn in public toilet