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Filipino domestic worker convicted of assault on paralysed man she was hired to help

  • Magistrate sentences 39-year-old domestic helper to four months, saying her acts were ‘really not in human nature’
  • Abuse emerged when bedridden, mute victim convinced his wife to watch security camera footage

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Eastern Court in Sai Wan Ho. A deputy magistrate on Thursday convicted a Filipino domestic worker of assaulting her paralysed employer. Photo: SCMP

A Filipino domestic worker has been sentenced to four months in jail after a Hong Kong court convicted her of assaulting the bedridden man she was hired to help.

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An Eastern Court magistrate ruled on Thursday that Ivy Bongalonta Rebustillo, 39, had struck the 60-year-old victim with a plastic stool and pulled his penis. Rebustillo had been employed to feed and clean the man after he was paralysed and left unable to speak by a stroke.

“It is really heart-wrenching to see the victim, who had no voice, subject to such acts by the defendant,” deputy magistrate Selma Masood said.

In her verdict, Masood said that no right-minded person would find Rebustillo’s actions acceptable.

Rebustillo was charged with one count of common assault and one of indecent assault after the man’s wife saw him pointing at the security camera installed in their North Point flat and she watched the footage. Rebustillo was convicted of common assault.

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The security video taken on June 30 showed Rebustillo tapping the man’s left thigh with her hand, and later lightly hitting his right hand with a pink plastic stool. Rebustillo also removed the man’s diapers and pulled on his penis for about three seconds. She was later shown shoving his right hand close to his mouth.

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