Missing girl not been seen for days before 'abduction': police source
Building's CCTV footage showed no sign of missing toddler, police source says
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 27 November, 2013, 5:15am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 27 November, 2013, 5:15am
Clifford Lo [email protected]
The girl who was abducted on Saturday. Photo: SCMP
A six-month-old girl who was allegedly abducted over the weekend had not been seen on closed-circuit camera footage recorded at the building where she lived for days before her disappearance, it emerged yesterday.
Detectives found no image of Yue Hoi-ching in footage seized from San Po Kong Mansion at Choi Hung Road on Monday, a police source said.
The focus of investigation has fallen on her unmarried mother, 31, as possibly having cooked up the story to scare the girl's father.
She was captured on CCTV at the ground-floor lift lobby a number of times, going in and out of the building with a stroller, the source said.
"But the sun cover of the stroller was lowered all the time," he said. "It is not known whether the baby was inside."
The source said police would conduct door-to-door inquiries in the building, where the mother and child lived on the sixth floor, and check if their neighbours had seen the baby.
Hoi-ching was allegedly taken from a stroller outside Carpenter Road Park in Kowloon City at about 7.45pm on Saturday as her mother gave a middle-aged woman directions to Wong Tai Sin MTR station.
The fabrication theory is one of the possibilities the Kowloon West regional crime unit is looking into. No one has been arrested so far.
The woman is a mistress of the baby's father, who is married with three children. Inquiries showed they had been embroiled recently in many arguments over love and money.
It is understood that the man's wife was unaware of the existence of his mistress until the abduction case came to light.
Frontline officers have been placed on high alert and police have sought help from the Immigration Department to keep a close eye on travellers with babies at various checkpoints.
"We are very concerned about the safety of the girl," a police spokeswoman said, adding that the force would spare no efforts to find her.
On Monday, the mother left a message on her Facebook page: "Give the baby girl priority! Thank you, web users!" She also posted pictures of her daughter on the page, appealing for help from the public.
Anyone with information is asked to call 6148 0919 or 6148 0920.
