If you're caught filming someone in a public toilet and charged with outraging public decency, it's no help to argue that you're innocent because there was only one person in the toilet.
A 'dedicated social worker' and 'devoted Christian' who hid a camera in the disabled toilet at the rehabilitation centre where he worked found this out to his cost yesterday.
Magistrate John Glass told Chui Wai-kin in Tsuen Wan Court that while there was only one person in the cubicle at any one time, his camera had caught more than one while it rolled for up to 20 minutes at a time.
Also, the filming had been done in a place where the public had access which made it a public act.
Chui, 31, a social worker at the Kwai Chung District Support Centre of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Social Service, who denied two charges of outraging public decency, was convicted and remanded in custody until May 15 for sentencing.
He admitted that he filmed women in the toilet on October 12 and 14 last year, but his lawyer Raymond Fong argued that there needed to be at least two people in the cubicle area at the same time to satisfy the requirement of 'public'. Also, the act of filming had to be capable of being seen by at least two people simultaneously.
The camera, wrapped in towel and tissue, captured three women on the first occasion and two on the second occasion in footage lasting 10 minutes 44 seconds and 20 minutes 49 seconds respectively. The women were Chui's colleagues.