Jan 2, Sat: A 62-year-old father of five takes a taxi to pick up his 34-year-old wife from hospital in the morning. When he arrives he pays for the ride and leaves his one-and-a-half-year-old son with the taxi driver, saying he has to go and deal with his wife’s discharge procedures and will be back in five minutes. After more than 20 minutes the man has not emerged. Worrying that the child has been abandoned, the driver takes him to a nearby police station. The father comes out of the hospital to find both the taxi and his son missing, and calls the police. Father and son are reunited after a brief investigation.

Jan 3, Sun: At 8am, a woman arrives at her job at a century-old temple in Tuen Mun to find that the temple’s closed-circuit television camera has been covered with a white towel, and a window near the back door has been broken. Police investigation does not rule out the possibility of burglary, but concludes that the thief fled empty-handed. No arrests have yet been made.

Jan 4, Mon: Two Nepalese brothers, aged 14 and 11, who came to Hong Kong with their relatives to visit their parents, are separated from their father when he accidentally boards an MTR train in Yau Ma Tei without them. Having previously been to Central with him, the brothers get on a train back there in the hope of finding him, but get lost. They spend almost 20 hours wandering the streets, with only enough money for a bottle of water. Police find the pair in Wan Chai in the early hours; both brothers are uninjured and the police buy them a meal before reuniting them with their parents.

Jan 5, Tue: A woman is shopping in the children’s section of a bookshop in Whampoa Garden when a man next to her smiles, then takes off his trousers and begins to masturbate in front of her. The woman screams “pervert!” and the man runs off. A staff member of the bookshop and three other passers-by chase and catch him. The man says to the woman “I’m sorry and I have something to tell you.” The woman replies, “don’t look at me, you are disgusting.” Police arrest him.

Jan 6, Wed: A primary school in Sham Shui Po puts up a notice reminding students to beware of people pretending to be police. On the previous Saturday, a 10-year-old student was heading home after school when he was stopped outside Nam Cheong MTR station by a man claiming to be a police officer. The man asked to “search” his school bag, taking a mobile phone before leaving. The real police have been made aware of the incident.