SEREMBAN: Baby Lee Kah Lok is safe and sound but his mother could be in trouble.
Fifteen-year-old Hue Xiao Pei admitted to the police yesterday that she had made up the story about her year-old son being missing.
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Lans Kpl Rosimah Aman holding little Lee Kah Lok in her arms at the Seremban district police headquarters yesterday. |
The girl, who is divorced from the child’s 25-year-old father, confessed that she had given Kah Lok away to a family in Johor as she could not afford to raise the baby.
The child was brought back here at 2.30pm after the police got the confession from her. The boy is now under the care of his father’s family.
In a twist of events, Hue, who is now going steady with an 18-year-old jobless youth, said she made up the story about her son gone missing to get away from the scolding of her mother and ex-boyfriend.
The child’s father is said to be recovering from injuries suffered after a fall from a roof he was fixing at the family home last year.
Negri Sembilan CID chief Asst Comm Huzir Mohamed said Hue admitted, after “much questioning”, that she had lodged a false report.
He said they contacted the family who wanted to adopt the boy and asked them to bring back the child here.
“Hue’s boyfriend brought the baby back and handed the child over to us at the commuter station here,” he said, adding that Kah Lok is safe and sound.
He said the police would forward their investigation papers to the Deputy Public Prosecutor, who would decide on the next course of action against Hue.
Hue had reportedly said she had gone to the Terminal One mall here on Thursday and left the little boy outside a digital printing outlet while she went in to enquire about a job.
After 15 minutes she came out of the shop and allegedly found her child missing.
Helped by some MCA members, she downloaded a photograph of her son from her camera phone, made copies of it and distributed the pictures to tenants and shoppers at the mall.
In her about-turn, she said she gave the baby away at the suggestion of her current boyfriend, who said that it would help to ease her burden and give the child a better future.
She said her boyfriend’s mother then introduced her to a woman, who said she wanted to adopt little Kah Lok.
They met at the Terminal One bus station at 1pm on Thursday and she gave the baby to the woman.
Hue, who has two brothers, aged 16 and five, said: “I am jobless and depending on my mother, a divorcee. She could hardly support all of us.”
The Negri Sembilan MCA crisis relief squad, which had helped to search for the baby, organised a press conference to mark the mother-and-child reunion.
However, the press conference was cancelled when the police called her to the district police headquarters, where she had a brief reunion with the baby.
“I want my son to have a better life and future,” she told reporters at the police station, where she had her statement recorded in connection with the false police report.
Accompanying her were her waitress mother, who wanted to only be known as Tham, 39, and several friends.
Tham apologised to all parties who had joined in the search for Kah Lok, when they first heard that the child had gone “missing”.
She said that like everyone else she did not know the truth until Hue confessed to the police.
The relief squad’s deputy chairman, Jason Lee, said they were happy that the baby was safe, which was their first concern.
