Hong Kong businessman who raped daughter, 18, and ‘treated her as sex toy’ jailed for more than 14 years

A Hong Kong businessman who raped his underage daughter, treating her “as a sex toy” by molesting her repeatedly, was jailed for 14½ years on Thursday.

Sentencing the man known to the court as HJD, High Court judge Mr Justice Albert Wong Sung-hau said the “shameless” father, 59, had not only failed his paternal duty, but also displayed a lack of remorse in putting his daughter, now 18, in the spotlight in court.

“The daughter was left feeling guilty,” the judge said.

After pleading not guilty last month, HJD was convicted following a jury trial of one count of rape and another of indecent assault.

He also pleaded guilty to three additional counts of indecent assault and a further one of indecency with a child under the age of 16. At one point he attempted to withdraw his plea for the charges, but that was rejected by the judge.

All the offences took place between 2012 and 2017, with the first assault happening when the girl – referred to as X in court – was 12 years old. She was raped when she was 15, and further sexual assaults followed.

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“You made your daughter take the witness stand to lay allegations against you”, the judge said on Thursday, referring to his not guilty plea.

Because of that, Wong continued, X was forced to testify against her father, even though she did not want him to end up in jail.

Coupled with the negative comments X had read online about her father, the judge cited medical experts in noting her road to psychological recovery would be long.

He also called the father “shameless” for treating his daughter “as a sex toy”, before sending the stone-faced defendant to prison.

The court heard at trial that at the time of the offences the family of four lived in Mong Kok, where the father ran a photography studio.

HJD had married his wife in mainland China before moving her and X, who has a younger sister, to Hong Kong.

The father made his first move on X in 2012, when she was still in Primary Six. More sexual assaults ensued in the years to come, with the rape taking place in 2015 when X was still in Form Three. He would tell her not to reveal the incidents to anyone, according to court evidence.

The case was eventually exposed in 2017, when the girl dropped hints on a school form that caught her teacher’s attention. This happened just two days before she was to be assaulted by her father again.

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For the form, X was instructed to suggest topics to be raised by her teachers at a parents’ day in 2017. She wrote of “fear at home” and said she suffered “an unerasable psychological scar”.

When a teacher approached her about what she had written, X tearfully complained of her father: “He has done something he really should not have done.”

The matter was eventually referred to the school’s social worker, who alerted police.