Camy Tam
A Burmese woman who previously worked as a domestic helper was arrested last Monday for abusing her 2 ½-year-old daughter at a social service shelter earlier that day, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong said at a press briefing on Friday.
The 30-year-old Burmese suspect surnamed Puii holds a temporary stay permit.
According to Chong, the Judiciary Police were notified by the emergency service of the public Conde de S. Januário Hospital Centre on Wednesday about a child abuse case and requested they investigate the case.
PJ officers contacted a staff member of a social service shelter in the city centre who told the police that the victim and Puii were staying temporarily in the shelter. The staff said that he or she witnessed the physical abuse at the shelter on Monday.
The police did not release the gender of the witness.
According to Chong, the staff member immediately stopped the abuse and rushed the little girl to the public hospital for treatment. A doctor confirmed that the child sustained a 7-by 2-centimetre bruise on her arm. The Judiciary Police scrutinised the shelter’s CCTV footage and confirmed that the suspect committed the crime and arrested her later that day.
Chong said that the suspect’s police record showed that she was involved in a child abandonment case on December 13, 2018. The suspect, who worked as a domestic helper at that time, had left her new-born daughter on the ledge of the external unit of an air conditioner outside the bathroom window at her workplace in the city centre when the city’s temperature stood at just 10 degrees Celsius. The suspect had worked for a couple since March in 2018. The female employer discovered the suspect lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood in the bathroom on December 13, 2018. The couple reported the case to the police and the suspect was taken to the public Conde de Sao Januário Hospital Centre. When the female employer went into the bathroom to clean up the blood on the floor in the early morning on the next day, she heard weak cries that appeared to be from a baby. She opened the window and discovered a new-born baby girl and immediately called the police. The baby was rushed to the public hospital for emergency treatment. After a DNA test, it was confirmed the suspect to be the mother of the baby. The Judiciary Police arrested Puii on December 16, 2018 for abandoning her daughter and she was sentenced to two and a half years behind bars.
According to Chong, after the suspect was imprisoned, the baby girl was taken to a social service shelter in the city centre to be taken care of. When the suspect was released from prison on June 16, she was admitted to the same shelter with her young child where she was arrested on Monday after abusing her daughter that day. Under questioning, Puii admitted to abusing her daughter because she was “naughty” and therefore needed corporal punishment.
Puii has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a charge of causing bodily harm, according to Chong.
Previous related articles published by The Macau Post Daily in 2018 can be accessed on our website: https://www.macaupostdaily.com/article5581.html
https://www.macaupostdaily.com/article5584.html
