Former Hong Kong mercantile chairman Barry Cheung 'teared up over plight of poor boy'

Former executive councillor and chairman of the now defunct Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange Barry Cheung Chun-yuen was once so moved by an underprivileged child that he became teary and made a speech about the encounter, Kowloon City Court heard yesterday.

This emerged as Cheung's counsel, Lawrence Hui Cheuk-lun, read out one of 10 mitigation letters he took from a stack.

The mitigation came after the 57-year-old former chairman, who is now unemployed, pleaded guilty to two summonses involving failure to pay his former corporate communications manager Raymond Ma Shui-lung. Hui said the letter came from a former employee, who described her former boss as having "a great passion for the underprivileged".

The letter said on an excursion to Tsuen Wan, the then chairman of the Urban Renewal Authority spotted a boy in a dimly lit alley. Although the boy was writing, the letter said, he did not have a proper desk to use.

Later, when Cheung talked about the boy on stage, his eyes became wet and his voice shaky, according to the employee whose name was not revealed.

"He said he was heartbroken to see a child living in such appalling conditions in a city as developed as Hong Kong," Hui quoted her as saying, adding that the experience prompted Cheung to consider speeding up development in the area.