A bank clerk convicted of indecent assault because a magistrate thought he had 'shifty eyes' walked free from court yesterday.
Chan Kwok-chue, 50, would have spent three weeks in jail if the allegation of molesting a woman on the MTR had been upheld.
Instead, he was cleared on appeal at the Court of First Instance after his barrister, Clive Grossman SC said Mr Chan had originally been found guilty because of his body language.
Temporary magistrate Adriana Ching had said she did not find Mr Chan a credible witness 'mainly because of his demeanour'. She said: 'His eyes were very shifty. Every time I looked at him he looked away.' She claimed she would not regard him as an honest witness.
But Mr Grossman said yesterday: 'This finding on demeanour is not simply wrong in law, it is wrong in common sense.
'Anybody going to court and being accused of a nasty crime which they maintain they have not done is going to be extremely embarrassed.
'The fact he did not want to meet the eyes of the magistrate is completely understandable.' The barrister also complained that Ms Ching, daughter of Court of Final Appeal judge Mr Justice Charles Ching, had told him he need not bother making full submissions for the defence.