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SCMP Reporter

Website users would know that an invitation to join a 'flash mob' to gang-rape women was a joke, given the context of internet forums, a defence lawyer argued yesterday.

Defence barrister James Cheng Chung-chin  told Judge David Lok   that the two invitations his client, Johnny Chan Sek-ming, 42, posted on the Gossip message board  at http://www.she.com/  on August 13 and 15 last year did not 'outrage public decency'.

He invited the judge to consider  the 'culture of the website'.

Chan pleaded not guilty to two charges of committing an act outraging the public decency, and two alternative charges of using a computer with intent to commit an offence.  The court heard that Chan, using his alias 'MasterMind', had twice posted invitations for people to team up for a 'flash mob rape'.

More than 100 responses to his two messages showed some people were disgusted, while others found the idea interesting and even suggested  a flash mob to injure a man's genitals.

Mr Cheng said the website's users understood Chan's intent by their understanding of the culture of the public forum Gossip and would know it had been  a joke. 'Outrage' was too strong a word to be used in this case, he said.

But Senior Government Counsel (Computer Crime) Eddie Sean Wai-sum  said in his final submission that ordinary, right-thinking members of the public would be outraged by Chan's public solicitation of partners to gang rape women - 'to commit such a disgusting, degrading, and insulting crime on women generally'.

He said  Chan had been serious when posting his messages  because he had included his genuine e-mail address for interested partners  to contact and had  posted the invitation twice.

'The public in general would be outraged at suggestions of  people organising a gang rape of a woman. Women fear rapists,' Mr Sean said.

He argued that if there were people interested in committing gang rapes,  the message board would become a platform for them.

The judge will deliver a verdict on Wednesday.



Rape invitations in keeping with 'culture of the website', court told