Hong Kong teacher found guilty of assaulting police officer
A primary school teacher has been found guilty of assaulting a police officer who stopped him for driving too slowly in response to a protest call.
Yeung Pok-man, 29, was remanded to a psychiatric facility after Fanling Court Magistrate Debbie Ng Chung-yee suggested that he was mentally unfit to teach. Yeung was also a member of the Hong Kong Beach Volleyball Team.
Yeung was stopped by the police on Nov. 11 last year at an elevated roundabout on So Kwun Po Road in Sheung Shui. The police officers accused him of deliberately delaying traffic as part of a city-wide strike against the now-withdrawn extradition bill.
Yeung said he was not involved in the protest but was only driving to work. He denied that he had kicked the sergeant who stopped him but instead said he was battered by the officers, who nearly threw him off a bridge.
Ng ruled that the three police officers who testified were honest. She said discrepancies in their testimonies regarding Yeung’s exact kicking action showed that they had not spoken to each other before the trial. On the other hand, she found Yeung’s claim that he was not aware of the strike call unconvincing, saying his family and friends must be living in “Africa or the third word” to not know about it.
Ng also dismissed Yeung’s claims that the police officers had shouted profanities at him. She said if Yeung had calmly explained to them that he was a teacher, the police officers would have thought he was “cultured and educated” and “harbored good qualities”. The magistrate added that she found Yeung’s eyes filled with hatred as the police officers testified.
Ng ruled that Yeung was deliberately delaying traffic and the officers were merely carrying out their duties. She remanded Yeung to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre pending two psychiatrist reports. A jail sentence would be inevitable, she said.
In an interview with Apple Daily before the conviction, Yeung said he had been harassed and his personal information had been posted online since the beginning of the trial.
Yeung was one of the 80 teachers and teaching assistants who had been arrested in city-wide protests against the extradition bill from June to December last year. He was the first to be convicted. Whether or not they are eventually convicted, they could face deregistration by the Education Bureau.
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