A FORMER assistant manager of Planet Hollywood was acquitted yesterday of indecently assaulting a femalestaff member.
Andrew Steven Lilley, 31, pleaded not guilty to having fondled the woman on December 14 last year.
Magistrate Henry Brazier said he accepted Mr Lilley's testimony that he may have accidentally touched the 27-year-old's body when the two were acting in a playful manner in front of the kitchen staff.
Giving his verdict, the magistrate said although some might think such behaviour was bizarre and unusual in traditional Hong Kong, it was not unusual among the young staff and customers in an international restaurant.
The woman claimed Mr Lilley unzipped his trousers when she asked him for a pen in the kitchen. She also told South Kowloon Court he later touched her bottom and groped her.
But Mr Brazier said incidents had been invented or exaggerated by the woman.
