A Hong Kong teenager who repeatedly slapped a 14-year-old girl at a shopping centre last year has been sentenced to a drug addiction treatment facility, after three other female defendants involved were earlier sent to rehabilitation.
Advertisement
West Kowloon Magistrate Vivian Ho Wai-han on Tuesday handed down the sentence to Wong Lok-him, 19, saying he would be better off staying in the centre under the Correctional Services Department’s supervision for drug addiction treatment.
Wong, who is unemployed, was among six people charged with a count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Four of them pleaded guilty and admitted to slapping the girl for at least six minutes in the rear staircase of the Mong Kok shopping centre in August last year.
The legal proceedings for another two defendants are still pending.
The six were arrested in March after a viral video on social media showed a girl being surrounded by a group of youngsters who slapped her at least 15 times.
In their statements to police, Wong and four others were acquaintances of the victim. Only Chow Yu-tung knew the victim and asked her to go to the staircase for a “negotiation” as the 16-year-old student thought she had badmouthed her.