No pleas by Hong Kong man and mainland woman charged with PLA barracks trespassing
Driver was over legal alcohol limit when he and passenger entered PLA base, court hears
A Hong Kong man accused of driving into a military barracks with a mainland woman as a passenger had an alcohol reading almost three times the legal limit, a court heard yesterday.
The breath-alcohol reading was revealed when Chung Yam-yiu, 48, and Yu Hongyun, 37, appeared in Kowloon City Court on charges related to the incident at Kowloon East Barracks in Renfrew Road on Tuesday.
They entered no plea to charges of entering the People's Liberation Army barracks without permission, an offence under the Public Order Ordinance.
Chung, an artist by occupation according to the charge sheet, is also charged with driving with excess alcohol in his system, after a test showed a reading of 59 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of his breath. The limit is 22mcg/100ml.
Both defendants told the court that they understood the charges against them.
The court granted the prosecution a four-week adjournment to seek legal advice.
The pair will appear in Kowloon City Court again on May 15, which is Yu's 38th birthday.
Magistrate Abu Bakar bin Wahab freed them on HK$5,000 bail but accepted the prosecution's request to ban Yu from leaving Hong Kong.
He ordered Yu to hand in her travel documents to the court.
In a separate case, the trial of four people arrested on suspicion of breaking into the garrison's Central Barracks in Admiralty to stage a protest on December 26 will begin on May 19.
Billy Chiu Hin-chung, 29, Dickson Cheung Hon-yin, 40, Tse Wing-man, 29, and a 15-year-old defendant who cannot be named for legal reasons all denied charges of entering a closed area without permission at a pre-trial hearing before Eastern Court last week.
The offence carries a maximum jail sentence of two years.
