Elderly woman jailed for 20 days, fined HK$3,000 over slapping child in Kwun Tong mall

An elderly woman has been jailed for 20 days and fined HK$3,000 over a fight in a Kwun Tong shopping mall, in which she was filmed slapping a child.

Leung Lai-ha and co-defendants Xu Yang and Ng Ka-wun appeared at Kwun Tong Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday.

They faced charges of fighting in a public place over an altercation at a play area in the APM shopping mall in August.

Leung, 69, is Ng’s mother, and they were at the play area with Ng’s son. Xu was there with her daughter.

Leung, who hit Xu’s five-year-old daughter after the child argued with her grandson over a basketball, also faced a charge of common assault.

The elderly defendant pleaded guilty to both charges. Magistrate Li Chi-ho said he considered Leung’s remorse and that she did not evade responsibility, local media reported.

He fined her HK$3,000 for fighting in a public place. For the common assault offence, Li said the girl had not attacked Leung and had no ability to fight back. Calling an immediate custodial sentence “inevitable” due to the trauma caused to the child, Li sentenced Leung to 20 days’ imprisonment.

Li handed a HK$1,000, 12-month bind-over order to Leung’s daughter, Ng. A bind-over order is an agreement between the court and the defendant under which the defendant must pay the stated sum if they fail to maintain good behaviour for the set period.

Xu initially intended to plead guilty, but changed her plea. Her duty lawyer requested that the magistrate issue a bind-over order, which was granted on the same terms as Ng’s.

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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.