A teenage boy and two men were sentenced on Thursday to terms ranging from 40 months to four years in prison for rioting during a violent protest in a Sha Tin shopping center in July 2019.
During sentencing, Magistrate Amanda Jane Woodcock of the District Court said she took into account the severity of the defendants’ violent act, and that even though the scuffle didn’t last long, two police officers were brutalized, resulting in one becoming disabled and incapable of carrying out front-line duties
Lee Man-him, 17, was sentenced to three years and four months. The other two — Leung Pak-tim, 24, and Kung Chi-yuen, 51 — were each sentenced to four years. All three had pleaded guilty to a charge of rioting .
On July 14, 2019, the three attacked police officers separated from colleagues in New Town Plaza, leaving two police injured — one with eye damage, and the other needing stitches on his head.
Footage of the chaos played in court showed defendants rounding up and kicking constable Cheung Lik-hang, who was trying to help an assaulted colleague, while another constable, Andy Kwok Siu-hang, fell from an escalator after a minute-long attack by a gang of assailants that included two of the defendants.
During sentencing, Magistrate Amanda Jane Woodcock of the District Court said she took into account the severity of the defendants’ violent act, and that even though the scuffle didn’t last long, two police officers were brutalized, resulting in one becoming disabled and incapable of carrying out front-line duties.
The magistrate said that according to the closed-circuit television video, Leung jabbed a police officer with an umbrella as if he were wielding a spear, which contradicts his claim that he didn’t intend to participate in the violence, Woodcock said. As for Lee, she said, the fact that he could be seen quickly, continually and viciously stabbing a police officer with an umbrella made clear that he was the most violent of the three defendants, contradicting his claim that he is not a person with a violent nature.
