Woman ‘locked 2 children in cages’ during her workout at Sham Shui Po playground

A woman has been heavily criticised online after she allegedly locked two children into storage cages at a Sham Shui Po playground while she exercised.

At around 9:30am yesterday, a man surnamed Leung was sitting in his car by the Maple Street playground when he saw a woman in her 40s lock a young boy and girl, around 4 and 2 years old respectively, into metal cages. After she secured them inside, Leung says the woman proceeded to run laps around the playground and play basketball.

“I think it’s a regular occurrence, she did it with ease … it seemed like the kids went in without encouragement,” Leung told Apple Daily.

The cages, which are roughly 2 feet cubed, are actually lockers used by basketball players to store their belongings. Leung took pictures and videos on his phone which he said was for the purpose of “warning people” about the woman, so they might “consider calling the police” if they saw her locking her kids away again.

That’s all well and good, but why Leung himself couldn’t have spoken to the woman or “considered calling the police” has raised a few eyebrows.  Reactions to the story online have been divided between horror at the woman’s actions and anger at Leung, the so-called “concerned citizen”, for his hypocrisy.

“It’s hard to think what those little children’s lives must be like,” one netizen said. “Screw [that woman], how can you cage your children just to play sports, do you have shit for brains?”

“Mr. Leung, calling the police is the first thing you should have done, not contacting Apple Daily! It’s hard to comprehend what you mean by ‘if you see her next time’… do you want there to be a next time?” another commented.

Some, of course, have lambasted both parties in one fell swoop,

“Mr. Leung, you’re a pretty funny guy,” one Facebook user wrote. “Why wouldn’t you call the cops before the reporters? If you needed to an ambulance one day, would you also call Apple Daily? And this woman… if you think these kids are such a hindrance, you should never have given birth to them!” (It should be noted that we don’t know the relationship between the children and the woman.)