Hangzhou nanny stands trial for toddler's fatal fall

The trial of a nanny accused of causing the fatal fall of a toddler from the eighth floor of a residential building after she accidentally left the toddler behind in an elevator in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, was held in the city on Tuesday.

The nanny, surnamed Wu, was charged by prosecutors with negligently causing the death of another.

The toddler, a 21-month-old girl, was reported to have fallen to her death on June 14 last year after she stepped out of the eighth-floor elevator of the apartment building where she lived.

According to video surveillance footage, the girl was left in the elevator by the nanny when they reached the first floor. It shows that the woman, who was checking her phone, turned around to see if the girl was following as the elevator doors were about to close, only to realize she had stayed behind.

Wu tried to use the girl's scooter to block the doors, but to no avail, and the girl, crying in the elevator, was then taken to the eighth floor of the building, where she exited and shortly disappeared from the view of surveillance cameras.

Her body was found afterward on a second-floor terrace below an eighth-floor window.

"Only criminal charges have been filed against the nanny for now," said Chen Changjiang, the girl's father.

About three minutes elapsed between the time his daughter was left in the elevator and her fall. The nanny contacted the father eight minutes later to tell him the girl was missing, according to Chen, who believed the nanny lied and wasted precious rescue time.

"If it had been an accident, and the nanny had truly shown her repentance, admitted her fault, and done everything to help, I might have forgiven her," said Chen. "Now I just want her to get what she deserves."

Chen said his family had yet to receive any apology from the nanny and the housekeeping service agency where she was registered, which he argued should also be held accountable.

A week into her job at the time of the incident, Wu was paid a monthly wage of 8,000 yuan ($1,160) for her services. While the agency showed Wu's professional nanny qualification when the contract was signed, Chen later failed to find any matching record on official qualification registration websites.

The construction and property management of the apartment building face questions as well. The window sill on the eighth floor is roughly 50 centimeters above the ground, and children can easily climb up onto it, where no safety bars or signs are installed or put up, according to Zhejiang-based Tide News.

Chen said her daughter was 80 centimeters tall at the time.

"The main arguments of the trial will likely center on two points," Xia Wenzhong, a lawyer, told Tide News. "Whether it was the nanny's negligence that caused the girl's death or it was just an accident, and whether there were other factors in play."

The Gongshu District People's Court in Hangzhou, which heard the case, will announce the verdict later.