Court hears how teenager was beaten and abused in a 10-hour ordeal A 21-year-old man who raped a teenager he met through an internet chat room was sentenced to six years' imprisonment yesterday. Prosecutor Alice Chan told the Court of First Instance that the 18-year-old girl met her attacker, Wong Mak-tik, alias Ah Chun, on August 2 last year, just hours after first exchanging messages in the ICQ chat room with him. He gave the girl his telephone number and when she called him an hour later, he invited her for a joy ride. She agreed. At 5am, Wong and two other men picked her up in Yuen Long and drove her to a wooden hut in Kam Tin. In an ordeal lasting almost 10 hours, the girl was stripped, punched and beaten with an iron rod and then forced to have sex with the defendant. The girl was treated in hospital for cuts and bruises to the head, eyes, chest and legs. Wong drove her home at 4pm and she called police. Officers later arrested him inside the hut. Wong is currently serving a separate six-year jail sentence, delivered in March, for the rape of another teenage girl. In sentencing, Deputy Judge Judianna Barnes Wai-ling told Wong that he had committed a very serious offence. The use of excessive violence on the victim and the fact that Wong had a previous conviction for rape were aggravating factors, she said. Deputy Judge Barnes originally started with a sentence of nine years, but reduced it by one-third to take account of Wong's guilty plea. She ordered four years to be run consecutively to the six years he is currently serving, making a total of 10 years. In mitigation, barrister Stephen Ma urged the court to take into account the defendant's age and the fact that the attack had not been premeditated. The South China Morning Post has reported that the growing use of internet chat rooms by sexual predators has prompted a community group, the Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women, to launch Hong Kong's first study into the phenomenon. Its initial findings indicated the main victims of ICQ rapes were girls aged between 15 and 18. The organisation also found that children surfing the chat rooms were being inundated with sexually suggestive messages.