Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@sabah.ku.39
This is the moment a toddler walking with her sister and her mum falls through a gap to her death from an unfinished fifth-floor bridge before police allegedly blamed the grieving mother for not supervising the child.
The terrifying scene was recorded by a CCTV camera in the Penampang district in the West Coast Division of state of Sabah in Malaysia as a family of four, who have not been named, were eating at a fifth-floor restaurant.
The mother of the two girls allowed the tots to go for a walk and accompanied them on their stroll.
In the video, the sister, aged three years and one year and seven months respectively, can be seen holding hands as they walk across a bridge with their mother behind them, appearing to record them.
The bridge has no warning signs and the smaller girl runs ahead before she suddenly disappears from view.
The elder girl and her mother can be seen panicking, with the parent running off the bridge and dragging her daughter with her.
Local media report the bridge was still under construction and the final parts were missing, leaving a gap which the toddler fell down.
The toddler was rushed to hospital by the emergency services but doctors later pronounced her dead.
A police report suggested the mother had not been monitoring the children but the video evidence appears to contradict this and Roger Chow, the victim’s uncle, dismissed the police’s claims.
He said that the girls’ mother had said in the police report that there were no warning signs saying the bridge was incomplete.
He added: “We are very surprised over how the police report had turned out differently,”
Local police chief Mohd Haris Ibrahim has now said: “We did not make up a story as if to blame the mother. The statement was based on the police investigation at the scene.”
The case has so far reportedly been classified as sudden death.
It is unclear if the building’s management are being investigated. It is unclear if the family plan to file a complaint against the police or those responsible for the unfinished bridge that led to the child’s fall.
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