Hong Kong police arrest ‘serial offender’ who allegedly splashed warm, unknown liquid on at least 10 women in street over month
- Man, 56, caught in police operation in Causeway Bay after being spotted by officer allegedly splashing liquid onto the buttocks of 17-year-old girl
- Suspect, a construction worker, arrested at the scene for outraging public decency, police say
The man, 56, was caught in a police operation on Great George Street in Causeway Bay on Friday night, after an officer spotted him splashing an unknown liquid onto the buttocks of a 17-year-old girl, the force said.
“According to initial investigations, the suspect carried the liquid around in a vacuum flask, and poured it onto the palm of his hand before quickly approaching his victim from behind,” Senior Inspector Yee Hiu-yin of Mong Kok district crime squad said on Saturday.
She said the man was arrested at the scene for outraging public decency, and remained in custody pending further investigation. His clothes and the vacuum flask were seized for inspection, Yee added.
Senior Inspector Leung Sin-yi of the Mong Kok district intelligence unit said the victims described the liquid as being “odourless, but with a light colour and slightly warm”, and that the force was waiting for test results to identify it.
Police said the man was suspected to be a serial offender.
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Between January 20 and February 18, police received reports from nine women, aged 16 to 32, saying their backsides had been splashed with warm liquid while walking around in Mong Kok, Leung said.
By the time they realised their clothes had been soiled, the perpetrator had already fled, she said.
“Some victims even reported being attacked twice within an hour,” she said, adding police managed to identify the suspect by combing through security footage of the area before conducting the operation in Causeway Bay on Friday.
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Yee said she had noticed a number of people posting on social media that they had similar experiences, and urged them or any witnesses to come forward to the Mong Kok crime squad.
She warned that the offence of outraging public decency was a serious crime that could lead to a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
An Instagram page has been posting the experiences of women who were assaulted in a similar fashion since February 7. The page has shared the stories of at least 100 people and amassed nearly 1,800 followers.
