Police arrest two more employees from children’s home run by Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, total suspects reaches 16.
Hong Kong police arrested another two employees of a scandal-rocked child protection group and identified three more victims who were allegedly abused at its Mong Kok location.
The latest arrests brought the total number of employees from the children’s home, run by Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children (HKSPC), to 16 and the number of victims to 29.
The facility had over 40 staff and housed more than 100 children. All 29 of the alleged victims had been sent to hospital.
A force insider said it was possible further arrests could be made as police had only reviewed over one-fifth of the 46,000-hour surveillance camera footage submitted by HKSPC.
He said he believed most of the employees involved in the alleged abuses had been arrested but it was likely that more incidents would be uncovered.
As of Tuesday night, the two suspects were being held for questioning and had not been charged.
Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children Headquarters in Mong Kok.
Police had already arrested and charged 14 female HKSPC staff over the past three weeks on suspicion of abusing 26 toddlers at the same facility.
The insider said the latest suspects’ offences took place in late November, with the pair allegedly involved in several incidents that occurred in the play room at the children’s home.
“One of the children involved was tossed against a wall on one occasion,” he said.
Police picked up the two women, aged 25 and 28, in Tseung Kwan O and Kwai Chung on Tuesday. They were off duty at the time of the arrests.
The three victims are girls aged between one and three. “No visible injuries were found on them,” said the source, adding that they had been sent to hospital for a check-up.
The scandal came to light last month after news outlets reported that employees had abused some of the children staying in the Mong Kok care home, including yanking their hair, hitting their heads, slapping their faces and tossing them on the floor.
Sixteen employees from a
children’s home run by Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children
have been arrested by police, so far. Edmond So
The HKSPC said last week that it submitted another 20,000 hours of surveillance footage to police, and vowed to assist in the investigation.
The footage came from 27 cameras installed at the Children’s Residential Home at the HKSPC’s service building. The videos span from mid-November to mid-December, amounting to about 5 terabytes of data, according to the society.
The society has also set up an independent review committee to look into the alleged offences and its operations as a whole to prevent similar incidents going forward.
After its first meeting last Tuesday, the committee’s chairman, former Law Society president Lester Garson Huang, said the body would look into the causes of the alleged abuse, and submit reports and make recommendations on the management and operations of the HKSPC.
HKSPC operates 27 centres across the city, serving around 3,000 children aged up to 16, as well as their families on a daily basis.