Hong Kong bar manager jailed for selling coupons to customers that allowed them to touch Thai women’s breasts in dice game
- Undercover officers accused of ‘staying longer than they needed to gather evidence’
- Magistrate describes scheme as strategy to make customers stay and spend more money on alcohol
A Hong Kong woman was jailed for eight months on Wednesday for managing a bar where customers could use HK$20 (US$2.50) coupons to redeem intimate exchanges with Thai women.
Yim Wai-han, 47, had urged undercover officers to purchase the coupons at a bar she ran in Tsim Sha Tsui, the Kowloon City Court heard. She was caught in a string of vice operations police launched between May 6 and June 22 last year.
Police disguised as customers were told by Yim to spend the coupons on a dice game, which determined prizes such as touching the breasts of Thai women at the place. They were also encouraged to reward the women with more coupons.
Yim had earlier pleaded not guilty to five counts of managing a vice establishment.
But Magistrate Joseph To Ho-shing convicted the woman on Wednesday, saying the coupon scheme was merely to shroud evidence of direct payments.
“The coupon system was a [device] to prevent arrest,” he said. “The game of chance was merely a disguise for an opportunity [to touch the women].”
Relying on the use of provision of sex services to enhance sales is akin to depending on the earnings of prostitution
The magistrate noted that although there was no sexual intercourse in the case, the mere touching of breasts would amount to the “lewdness” required for criminal sanction.