On 1 April 2019, Deputy High Court Judge Gary Lam allowed the appeal in HKSAR v Lau Sum Yan (劉森仁) [2019] HKCFI 840. The Judge quashed the Appellant’s conviction and 28-day jail sentence for indecent assault.
In May 2017, the domestic helper employed by the Appellant filed a complaint with the police, alleging that the Appellant had inappropriately touched her on a number of occasions. The Appellant was subsequently charged with 3 counts of indecent assault.
At trial, a video relevant to the third count was tendered in evidence albeit not directly capturing the precise conduct complained of. On the strength of the video evidence, the Appellant was convicted on that count alone.
On appeal, the Judge agreed with counsel for the Appellant that the video footage showed the touching complained of was inherently impossible.
Obiter, the Judge reminded himself that the relevant standard of indecent assault is that the conduct complained of has to be “undoubtedly or unequivocally indecent” by contemporary moral standards. He opined that it was arguable whether the fact that the Appellant had put one arm on the Complainant’s shoulder and touched her face with his left thumb while being topless was indecent in that sense.
Osmond Lam and Dexter Leung, instructed by Messrs Huen & Partners, acted for the Appellant.
The full judgment (in Chinese) can be found here.