Hong Kong man who sneaked into Chinese University campus dormitory to molest sleeping women told to expect prison term
- The repeat offender took advantage of unlocked doors in the hall of residence to grope two first-year students
A repeat sexual offender on Wednesday admitted intruding into a university dormitory to molest two sleeping women last year.
The magistrate told Cheung Tsz-ning a prison term was inevitable, ahead of sentencing next month.
The 28-year-old took advantage of unlocked doors in a women’s hall of residence of Shaw College on Chinese University’s Sha Tin campus to enter two bedrooms in the early morning of August 15, 2019. He groped two first-year students who were taking part in an orientation camp organised by the engineering faculty.
Cheung, a former student at the university who is now unemployed, said he wanted to experience campus life again, having dropped out two years previously, and committed the offences on impulse.
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He was remanded in custody after pleading guilty to two counts of indecent assault at Sha Tin Court. He will be sentenced on February 11.
The court heard the defendant committed the same offence for the first time in 2007, when he was 15. His most recent conviction, for loitering, came in 2017.
In the present case, the first victim was woken at 5am, after feeling her back being touched. She saw Cheung leave her room but did not chase him.
She found a tissue in her palm, and another covering the eyes of her roommate. Her shirt was pulled up and the clasp of her bra undone.
Soon after, the second victim, who was sleeping on a lower floor, felt her chest being touched for two minutes. She did not come to her senses as she was tired.
When she woke at 5.55am, she found her thigh was smeared with semen. Upon arrest, Cheung admitted he had masturbated while groping the victim.
Security footage showed the defendant walking into the dormitory at 7.17pm the previous night. After the attacks, he left at 6.05am and returned home two hours later.
In mitigation, the defence counsel said his client had a fetish for sleeping women. He had attended counselling at the university, but had stopped doing so from April 2018. He promised to seek help from psychologists again in future.
You cannot compensate the victims for their injuries, but you can consider how to repay the support of your mother and your girlfriend
Magistrate Edward Wong Ching-yu said a prison term was inevitable, adding the offence was very serious, and traumatising for the victims.
He said the defendant could not excuse himself from psychological treatment, as he had been struggling to hold back his sexual urges from a young age.
Wong told the defendant: “You cannot compensate the victims for their injuries, but you can consider how to repay the support of your mother and your girlfriend.”
Wong called for three reports to look into the defendant’s background and psychological and psychiatric conditions before sentencing.
