Hearing-impaired man admits 14 child sex offences
Bastillepost · 3 SOURCES1 day ago6 MIN
Summary
A 31-year-old hearing-impaired defendant, identified in court as M.S.C., pleaded guilty in the District Court on September 30 to 14 offences involving his 10-year-old paternal half-sister, including indecent acts with a child under 16, making child pornography and possessing child pornography. The case concerned conduct in 2019 at a former home in Tseung Kwan O, as well as child sexual abuse material later found on his electronic devices during a police search in Tai Po on January 16, 2024. Deputy District Judge Wong Nga-yan (黃雅茵) adjourned sentencing to December 8 for a psychiatric report on the defendant and a trauma report on the victim, and ordered that he remain in custody. The defence said the man had a congenital ear condition, used hearing aids, studied to university level and had continued working, and asked the court to consider a non-custodial sentence.
Key Points
- The defendant admitted two counts of committing an indecent act with a child under 16, eight counts of making child pornography and four counts of possessing child pornography, for 14 offences in total.
- Prosecutors said the offences spanned from May 7, 2017 to January 16, 2024, while the molestation involving the girl took place in 2019 at the family’s former Tseung Kwan O residence.
- In a video-recorded interview, he said he touched the girl’s thigh and buttocks for two to three minutes, pulled down her trousers and photographed her private parts.
- He also admitted masturbating twice in the girl’s presence, with one incident involving ejaculation onto her private parts, and said some images of her showed a white substance.
- Police searched his Tai Po home and examined four digital devices, finding 88 indecent images and 120 videos of children; 17 images were of the victim and the rest were said to be downloaded online.
Why It Matters
The case shows how child sexual abuse offences can remain hidden for years before digital evidence brings them to light, and why courts seek both psychiatric and trauma assessments before sentencing in serious intrafamilial abuse cases. For Hong Kong readers, it also underlines the role of device searches and stored image transfers in prosecuting offences that began inside the home and later expanded to downloaded material.