Thirty-four carers were arrested and charged in connection with 407 cases of abuse at the residential home in Mong Kok after the scandal came to light.

The court heard that children linked to the 31 charges were placed at the centre because their parents had been unable to take care of them or had abandoned them.

The prosecution said Chiu had assaulted one of the victims, a three-year-old boy, on five separate occasions at the society’s Mong Kok residential home.

Chiu was responsible for feeding, bathing and providing general care to toddlers aged two to three.

The prosecution played surveillance footage taken between that September 18 and December 28 in 2021, showing several of the incidents that took place within the centre and at its outdoor playground.

The court also heard that Chiu on December 17 of that year struck a two-year-old boy on the head several times in the playground, before using her palm to roughly push his face, despite him trying to block her with his arms.

Prosecutor Dimitri Au-Yeung Shun-hei said the defendant picked up objects from the ground and stuffed them into the boy’s mouth. She then dragged him away by his shirt collar, throwing him off balance, he added.

On the same day, Chiu pushed a three-year-old boy to the ground and pinned his left leg with her knee, while pulling his right one towards his head.

On November 18 of that year, she slapped the chest of the same boy seven to eight times and then pressed a blanket down onto his face during nap time, causing him to cry.

Chong Ka-yi, 25, who also appeared at court on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to seven counts of child abuse, including throwing her shoe at two toddlers, both aged three, and striking one on the head and the other on the arm.

Defendant Cheuk Hoi-yan, 23, pleaded guilty to six counts of child abuse, including using a towel to strike a child’s face.

In response to a mitigation plea for community service, District Judge Lily Wong Sze-lai said the move was “presumptuous and exorbitant”, with jail terms being the only suitable outcome.

Chiu will face another 30 charges of child abuse in a separate trial on Wednesday.

The scandal surfaced on December 17, 2021, after a resident living near the centre contacted the society and expressed concerns that some staff were allegedly abusing children in the playground.

The organisation’s centre in Mong Kok is Hong Kong’s only 24-hour residential care centre dedicated to infants and toddlers under the age of three.

The home’s then superintendent, Shirley Chui Wai-ying, reviewed the surveillance footage and reported the case to the Social Welfare Department, which contacted police the following week.

Last July, part-time worker Fung Fung-ho was given 2½ years in jail after she admitted to assaulting 11 toddlers, the toughest sentence handed down in connection with the case so far.

In Hong Kong, the ill-treatment or neglect of a child carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.