Hong Kong man who drank colleague’s breast milk given probation after getting treatment for gambling issues
Yiu Ming-kin, 42, said he surrendered savings and credit cards to sister to stop himself from gambling
A man who drank his colleague’s breast milk because he was feeling stress from gambling debts was given 12 months’ probation by a court on Friday, to be served while undergoing psychological and psychiatric treatment.
The Eastern Court heard that Yiu Ming-kin, 42, stole two bottles of breast milk from his office pantry on July 3 and replaced their contents with fresh milk.
The switch was discovered when the young mother noticed that the bag holding the bottles was missing, and that the milk had increased in volume and was a different colour.
When she confronted Yiu, he admitted to drinking some of her breast milk out of curiosity.
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Magistrate Cheung Kit-yee on Friday decided to give Yiu a second chance after he pleaded guilty last month to one count of theft.
In mitigation, Yiu said he had been proactively trying to solve the gambling problems that had triggered his offence.
Yiu wrote to the court expressing regret over his reckless and foolish actions and said that he was sorry for bringing discomfort to the victim’s family.
Other letters from his family, friends, classmates and colleagues from the Office of Communications Authority portrayed Yiu as an honest, reliable, helpful, polite and easy-going person.
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But sentencing reports, which recommended 12 months’ probation for Yiu, revealed that he had for years struggled with a serious gambling addiction.
Defence lawyer Joshua Choy said his client was a good person who did not know how to tackle his gambling issues, which led to him to act weirdly, such as in the present case.
The court heard that Yiu had been getting psychiatric treatment since August and had surrendered all his savings and credit cards to his sister to stop himself from gambling.
“He is determined to turn over a new leaf after the present case,” Choy said.
