Filipina faces assault charges over employer’s bed-ridden husband

A 38-year-old Filipina domestic worker was charged with common assault and indecent assault of her employer’s bed-ridden husband at the Eastern Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Defendant Ivy Bongalonta Rebustillo allegedly hit her employer HS Wong’s husband, a 60-year-old semi-paralyzed man, with a plastic stool and touched his penis, hongkongnews.com reported.

The court heard that Wong hired Rebustillo in 2017 to take care of her husband, who “could not eat, speak, or walk.” The left side of the man’s body was paralyzed after a stroke. He passed away in August last year.

According to the prosecution, Wong said her late husband wrote a note to complain that the domestic worker gave him his own feces “for him to eat”. That prompted Wong to set up a surveillance camera at the home.

The camera captured the alleged assaults on the morning of June 30 last year inside the complainant’s flat on King’s Road in North Point on Hong Kong Island.

The lawyer for Rebustillo said the Filipina had to touch Wong’s husband’s private parts because she had to change his diaper and had to clean him up.

He said the defendant did not maliciously hit the man with a plastic stool – it was actually just a light hit on his right hand to remind him not to touch his feces.

Under questioning, the employer admitted that she would also lightly hit her husband’s hand when he touched his feces to remind him not to do that, because he sometimes did that and spread the feces on his bed, Oriental Daily reported.

She also admitted that sometimes the defendant would also “lightly hit” her husband’s right hand in her presence to stop him from touching his feces.

The trial continued on Wednesday. Three other prosecution witnesses were expected to testify.