Hong Kong policeman gets 14 months’ jail for ill-treating baby son who later died

A Hong Kong policeman whose nine-month-old son died in 2019 was jailed for 14 months on Friday after being found guilty of ill-treating the boy by covering his face with a duvet although the exact cause of death remains unknown.

Kwun Tong Court heard Filomeno Chiang’s son died on February 19, 2019, after he was found motionless and his lips turned purple on the same night the father tried to put the child to sleep by covering him from his head to his legs with a duvet.

Security camera footage from Chiang’s Yau Tong flat showed that he woke up in the middle of the night to attend to the crying baby, feeding him and holding him in his arms before he appeared to lose his temper and threw a towel on his son’s face.

The clip showed Chiang subsequently put the baby on a floor mat, while he slept on the sofa. Evidence suggested that the baby had continued to cry under the duvet for another 43 minutes until he became quiet.

Chiang, who earlier denied ill-treating or neglecting the child, had defended his action as wanting to block the light with the duvet. He said he had done so seven other times since December 2018, and nothing had happened to the baby before the incident.

Deputy Magistrate Erica Chong Ching-wai on Friday dismissed his defence and ruled that Chiang could have used alternative methods to achieve the same result but instead chose to put his son in discomfort and at risk of asphyxia.

“The case is most unfortunate. While it is not a matter of dispute that he loved his son, it doesn’t mean he did not commit a mistake. What he did was a serious attack and ill-treatment of the child,” she said.