‘Perverted’ Hong Kong railway worker gets 4½ years’ jail for crime spree including impersonating police officer to solicit porn videos from teens
- Fong Hung-shun, 36, committed progressively more serious crimes over a two-year period, from taking upskirt videos to sending women demeaning messages and threats
- He abused his position at MTR Corp to obtain victims’ personal information and contacted them using prepaid SIM cards to cover his tracks, judge says
Deputy District Judge Merinda Chow Yin-chu on Friday called Fong Hung-shun, 36, a pervert who committed progressively more serious crimes over a two-year period – from taking upskirt videos to sending women demeaning messages and threats.
The District Court judge also noted Fong had breached the trust of his then employer, rail giant the MTR Corp, by abusing his position to obtain his victims’ personal information, and had contacted them using prepaid SIM cards in a calculated move that made it difficult for them and police to track him down.
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“It was fortunate that the victims had the wisdom not to fall for his tricks,” the judge said. “I consider that a heavy sentence is necessary to deter the defendant from reoffending.”
Fong was jailed for four years, five months and four weeks on 11 charges, with the judge recommending counselling and psychological therapy in prison.
The District Court previously heard that Fong was an operations performance officer for the MTR Corp, a position that gave him access to an internal computer system for compiling incident reports.
It was fortunate that the victims had the wisdom not to fall for his tricks
Using personal information he obtained from those reports, Fong then approached five women online to solicit nude videos, by impersonating a police officer or using threats that included causing trouble for one victim’s family, leaking allegations of misconduct about another and sharing videos of a third using the restroom.
None of the victims, who included a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, agreed to the video request.
But one woman got so frightened that she changed her phone number after Fong used four different numbers to send her a series of obscene text messages and told her there was no use blocking him because he had a lot of numbers to play with her.
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Fong also attempted fraud by using a former colleague’s information to fill out an application for a HK$600,000 (US$76,950) loan, then sent her photos of the paperwork with a reminder that she should make regular repayments each month while he would spend her money. He later explained that the loan application was just a prank because he had a poor relationship with her.
He was finally arrested in a police sting on November 18 last year, with officers finding two upskirt videos in his phone.
A psychologist who subsequently interviewed him concluded that Fong’s chance of reoffending was at the “high end of the moderate range”, despite no evidence of mental illness.
The expert also recounted Fong’s explanation for his offences, revealing that he had approached his victims because he found their reports suspicious and felt obliged to investigate whether they had lied, by soliciting the videos to force them to confess wrongdoings.
In mitigation, defence counsel Olivia Tsang Oi-kei said Fong’s offences stemmed from his negative feelings towards his female colleagues and an inability to resolve them properly.
Tsang added that his arrest had been a wake-up call, prompting deep reflection.
“He’s now standing on a spiritual path, studying the Bible, and he’s motivated for psychological treatment,” she said.
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The court heard Fong was truly remorseful and had written to each victim to offer his sincere apology.
His sisters also wrote to the court expressing shock at his offences, while his wife was noticeably absent from the mitigation letters and his sentencing hearing.
Fong pleaded guilty last month to a raft of charges, including three counts of falsely pretending to be a police officer, three counts of criminal intimidation, two counts of committing an act outraging public decency and one of attempted fraud.
He also pleaded guilty to one count each of procuring a person under the age of 16 for making pornography and another similar charge relating to a person older than 16 but younger than 18.
All but one of these 11 offences took place over a six-month span between June and November last year, following his first offence in January 2019.
