Officer avoids jail for toilet loitering
The police constable who was convicted of loitering in a female toilet escaped a prison sentence yesterday after he was given a probation order of 12 months.
But Wong Chi-ho is scheduled to appear in the same court in March on a separate loitering charge.
The 34-year-old, dressed in a pink shirt and black suit, smiled when he walked out of the courtroom at Eastern Court and shook hands with his lawyer.
Magistrate Julia Livesey said she decided against a jail term because of good comments about Wong from his former supervisor.
Wong, who had a clean record before the loitering conviction, has been ordered to be under the supervision of a probation officer for 12 months. Ms Livesey called for psychological and psychiatric reports before sentencing Wong, but they were not available yesterday.
She agreed with Wong's lawyer that there was no need for the reports after reading one from a probation officer.
Wong was convicted this month of loitering in the women's toilets at the police headquarters at Arsenal House in Wan Chai on March 4.
He had denied the charge, saying he opened the door to the toilets to look for a female cleaner but did not go in. Wong had told the court that a male cleaner told him to look for the female cleaner about an urgent matter.
But Ms Livesey did not believe Wong's testimony because the woman from the toilet did not hear him knock or call for the cleaner. She concluded that Wong had been inside the toilet, occupying a cubicle while a woman was using the toilet.
