When a Hong Kong horse racing commentator was jailed for raping employee, who ‘he didn’t consider his lover’
- Hung Wai-tak, a former Hong Kong jockey, was charged in 1999 with raping an employee, in a case that attracted plenty of publicity
- He said he acted like a child after the attack because he wanted to ‘win her affection’. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison
“A turf commentator behaved like a child when an employee attempted to wake him a few hours after he allegedly raped her,” reported the South China Morning Post on April 29, 1999. “Hung Wai-tak, 39, said he pretended to be sleeping when the woman shook his hand to wake him on March 6 last year.
“‘I behaved like a child as I wanted to win her affection […] I was still in that mood,’ Hung [a popular jockey turned commentator] told the Court of First Instance. The woman had denied going near his bed after the alleged rape. Hung, who denies rape and insists they had consensual sex, told the court he did not regard the woman as a lover.
“Hung did not remind the woman not to tell his wife of their encounter on March 6 because ‘I trusted her’.”
On April 30, the Post reported that the “woman admitted she had washed away evidence that could have backed her claim [and] Prosecutor Stanley Chan noted the woman said she was in a confused state […] and had washed herself, her nightgown, underwear, a sheet and pillowcases”.
“Defending, Gary Plowman SC said that she could have followed [Bill Clinton aide Monica] Lewinsky’s example [but] ‘She knew Mrs Hung was coming back the next night. She didn’t want Mrs Hung to know she and her husband had been in bed together’.
“The defence counsel also asked the jurors not to be swayed by media coverage of the week-long trial.
“Sex and horse-racing, he said, were what the Hong Kong public liked best and their combination in his client’s case had attracted ‘a fair degree of publicity’.”
On January 4, 2001, the Post confirmed that “Hung, 41, who is serving a five-year jail term for raping an employee, lost an appeal in October.”
