So Suk-yee, 32, was ordered to be tried despite pleading guilty in the District Court to a charge of mistreating her three-month-old son by feeding him milk formula too diluted to keep him alive.

Judge Adriana Tse Ching, at a July 13 hearing, reversed So's plea after it emerged the jobless mother had denied in a report that she had starved her baby.

So had two sons with a lover more than a decade ago. She later had a daughter with her husband and then two more sons with her current boyfriend.

She was living with her daughter and two youngest sons, and surviving on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance of HK$6,300 a month at the time.

The court heard that on April 19 last year, a social worker visited So's home and found the infant too skinny. But the accused told her she fed him three to four times a day.

Just over a fortnight later, So noticed the baby showed little signs of life and took him to hospital where he was declared dead. An autopsy revealed he was fed excessively diluted formula and weighed just 3.01 kilograms at the time.

So's five-year-old daughter and two- year-old son are currently under the care of charity group Po Leung Kuk. CANDY CHAN