Auditor acquitted in MTR indecent assault trial
AM730 · 2 SOURCESabout 2 hours ago5 MIN
Summary
A Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts magistrate acquitted a 47-year-old auditor charged with indecently assaulting a woman on an MTR Tuen Ma Line train between Ho Man Tin and Hung Hom on 2 August 2024. Magistrate Chan Chi-fai said the complainant’s first statement omitted some details that appeared in a later statement, including the distance between her and the defendant after she turned around. With no CCTV footage and no eyewitnesses, the court said it could not safely accept the complainant’s testimony in full or determine the precise course of events. Although the magistrate also found the defendant’s account unreasonable, he was acquitted on the basis of reasonable doubt.
Key Points
- The defendant, Chan Lik-hang (陳力恆), 47, who reported his occupation as an auditor, denied one count of indecent assault.
- The charge alleged he indecently assaulted Woman X inside a Tuen Ma Line carriage between Ho Man Tin and Hung Hom stations on 2 August 2024.
- Woman X testified she felt a hand brush her buttocks from behind, turned around, and saw only the defendant, leading her to believe he touched her.
- The magistrate said her first statement omitted details later mentioned, including the distance between them and whether the object felt soft or hard.
- The defence said she declined a further statement two days later, sought continued investigation in February 2025, and gave a second statement in June 2025.
Why It Matters
The ruling shows how courts assess credibility in cases that depend mainly on one complainant’s account and one defendant’s denial, especially when there is no video or independent witness evidence. For Hong Kong commuters, it also underlines the evidential difficulties in alleged offences inside crowded rail carriages, where incidents can be brief and hard to reconstruct later.