A Hong Kong magistrate has acquitted a government statistician of a loitering offence, despite describing his behaviour of following and photographing a schoolgirl during an open day last year as “highly suspicious.”
Patrick Lam, a statistician with the Census and Statistics Department, was cleared of a charge of “loitering causing concern” at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Tuesday.
He allegedly caused a Secondary 4 student identified in court as “X” to have concerns about her safety during an open day at her school in Causeway Bay on July 5 last year.
Magistrate Kestrel Lam said X’s concerns stemmed not from what happened on the open day, but from her experiences of being stalked by the defendant over the past two years. Those incidents, however, were not part of the offence details presented by the prosecution.
According to local media, the court previously heard that the defendant began following X as early as October 2022. This included waiting for her at Olympic MTR station and initiating a conversation on at least one occasion, asking her whether she had an exam that day.
The girl testified via video link earlier this month, saying that she had sought to avoid the defendant on her way to school but had still seen him at Central MTR station, apparently waiting for her.
Following his arrest, the man admitted to police that he had followed the girl. Under caution, he said, “I followed the female student because she reminded me of an old friend, so I wanted to get to know her,” the court heard.
Anti-stalking law
Magistrate Lam said on Tuesday that the girl’s fear was rooted in her past encounters with the defendant rather than his behaviour during the open day.
The loitering offence targets “objectively threatening behaviour,” the magistrate noted, adding that the court should not consider the defendant’s past conduct in the present case.
The court must decide whether a normal student without X’s experience would have felt threatened by the defendant during the open day, the magistrate said, before ruling him not guilty.
But the defendant’s behaviour, including secretly photographing the girl during the open day, was “undeniably highly suspicious,” the magistrate said.
He noted that the Law Reform Commission (LRC) of Hong Kong has recommended the introduction of an anti-stalking law, and that the girl may seek assistance through other legal means.
The LRC made the recommendation in a report released in October 2000. The government launched a public consultation regarding an anti-stalking law in 2011, but a legislative bid was dropped in 2014 due to a lack of consensus.
