By DPA,
Hong Kong : A suicidal Hong Kong mother who gave her five-year-old son an overdose of sleeping pills after discovering her husband was having an affair was Tuesday spared a jail sentence.
Qin Yulan, 29, originally from mainland China, was put on probation for 30 months after admitting administering poison at a hearing in the city’s District Court.
Qin fed her five-year-old son an overdose of sleeping pills and put him to sleep in a park near her home late last year, intending to return home and kill herself.
However, she did not go through with suicide plans and her son was taken to hospital where he made a full recovery from his overdose.
At Tuesday’s hearing, judge Amanda Woodcock told Qin, who is married to a Hong Kong decorator, that her offence was so serious it would normally merit a prison sentence.
However, she said Qin was suffering from depression at the time of the incident and a psychiatric report to the court indicated she loved her son and was unlikely to harm him again.
Hong Kong, a high-rise city of 6.9 million with limited social welfare services, has been hit by a spate of murder-suicide cases and a sharp rise in domestic violence cases in recent years.