UPDATED
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| Tai Po District Police is investigating the case |
A Filipina domestic worker in Sheung Shui was freed on police bail late Friday June 1) night after being investigated for more than 24 hours for allegedly hitting her four-year-old male ward.
Michelle M. Legion, 29, was granted $500 bail while police continue their investigations. No charges were filed against her.
One of her friends told The SUN Legion was told by police that if her employer does not pursue the complaint within three weeks the case will be dropped.
Legion, who has been given shelter at the Filipino Workers Resource Center in Sheung Wan, has reportedly denied the accusation.
Some of her friends who often saw her with her ward also told The SUN that the child was affectionate towards the helper, and she in turn was devoted to him.
Her friends panicked when they could no longer reached her after she secretly called them from the Sheung Shui police substation to say she had been detained. They contacted the Consulate, which at first could not give any information as to her whereabouts.
Acting on the information, The SUN made inquiries with the Police Public Relations Branch. A spokeswoman confirmed Legion was arrested and later taken to the Tai Po police station after receiving a complaint from her female employer at 7:55pm Thursday.
Officers who went to the employers’ flat at Green Code, a residential estate at Ma Sik Road in Fanling, reportedly found the boy with injuries on his back and bottom. But it was not immediately clear whether the boy was hit, and who did it.
The police spokeswoman said the helper was arrested for suspected cruelty to a child.
The officers sent the boy, who was in a conscious state, to North District Hospital in Sheung Shui for medical treatment before transferring him to Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital
The spokeswoman said investigators from the District Investigating Team 4 of Tai Po Police are following up the case.
