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| Trial was held in Eastern Court |
By Vir B. Lumicao
Was it a tap or a blow?
A Filipina accused of assaulting her bedridden elderly male
ward has admitted using a pink plastic stool to hit his hand, but said it was
just a “tap” to remind him not to touch his feces.
Ivy Rebustillo was again called to the witness on Mar 1 in Eastern Court
During her testimony, a CCTV footage taken in the living
room of the employer’s North Point flat was played repeatedly in a bid to
challenge the prosecution’s case that the recording showed her committing both common
assault and indecent assault on her ward.
The part where Rebustillo had used a stool to “tap” on the
hand of her ward, named only as “Mr X,” was replayed over and over as the
helper was asked if that was intentional.
Each time the Filipina said “no”. She repeatedly said it was
just a tap to stop her ward touching his feces.
When asked why she had to use the stool to hit the hand of
her ward when she could have just used her hand, Rebustillo said it was what
she was holding at the time.
But during cross-examination, the prosecutor took note of
the force of the tapping. He said the knocking sound picked up by the CCTV from
the impact formed the basis for the police charging her with common assault.
The prosecutor also said the seven seconds it took for the
Filipina the pull the penis of the elderly man while changing his diaper was the
basis for the indecent assault charge. He asked why the Filipina had to hold
the sex organ that long if she was just inspecting her ward’s genital area while
it was smeared with excrement.
The defense scored an initial victory when Magistrate Selma
Masood agreed to exclude from the trial a video recorded interview by the
police with Resbustillo, after her lawyer alleged investigators used threats
and inducements to get her to admit the charges.
But Masood ruled that Rebustillo had a case to answer.
According to Rebustillo’s lawyer assigned by the Duty Lawyer
Service, his client was repeatedly body-searched and handcuffed as she was
transported between the two police stations in North Point and Wanchai for the interview.
The lawyer also said the police had told the Filipina that she
could have a possible sentence of six months in jail reduced to just two months
if she pleaded guilty to the charges.
At the start of her testimony, Rebustillo had claimed she did
not fully understand a police notice about her rights which she was made to
sign, because she was given a Tagalog interpreter instead of a Bicolano one as
she had requested.
Her lawyer said it was wrong for the police to make her sign
the declaration when she did not fully understand its contents.
Magistrate Masood set the final day of hearing on Mar. 7.
