Three men have been jailed for up to five years and three months after pleading guilty to rioting during a mob attack in Yuen Long in 2019.
Handing down the sentences on Thursday, local media reported that District Judge Adriana Noelle Tse Ching said the Yuen Long mob attacks, a watershed moment during the 2019 protests, had “completely fractured” relationships between people of different political stances.
The mob attack on July 21, 2019 in Yuen Long MTR station. Photo: Screenshot.
Ng Wai-tak, 38, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to rioting at the earliest opportunity. Wong Ho-sing, 28, and Cheng Man-kit, 43, who pleaded guilty to the rioting charge after the case had gone to trial, were both jailed for five years and three months.
They were charged with one count of rioting and one count of conspiracy to injure on July 21, 2019. Ng and Wong earlier pleaded guilty to the wounding charge, while Cheng pleaded not guilty, according to local media reports.
According to case details, they were accused of entering the paid area of Yuen Long MTR and attacking people in the station with canes and throwing objects at them. Wong was also said to have gathered with others on the MTR platform and thrown objects at a train carriage.
Speaking Cantonese, Tse on Thursday said it was “indisputable” that the defendants’ actions were premeditated, and that they had carried metal pipes and rattan canes to the station that night, rejecting Ng’s and Wong’s defence that they had committed the offence on the spur of the moment.
The attacks left the floor of the MTR station “covered in bloodstains,” Tse added.
Tse on Thursday also cited an earlier case that related to the same incident, in which a judge ruled that the defendants had taken the law into their own hands with their own armed forces, “reducing the police to a supporting role.”
‘Completely fractured’
The trio were sentenced on Thursday for their involvement in a mob attack on the evening of July 21, 2019, when over 100 men dressed in white stormed Yuen Long MTR station and carried out indiscriminate attacks on journalists, protesters, and commuters, as well as a pro-democracy lawmaker who has also been found guilty of rioting over the same incident.
Photo: Almond Li/HKFP.
Police were criticised for responding slowly to the attacks, with some officers seen leaving the scene or interacting with the white-clad men. The official account of the incident has changed over the years, with the authorities eventually calling the incident a “gang fight.”
Judge Tse also referenced a Court of Appeal judgement linked to the Yuen Long attacks, saying that the incident had amounted to, “in essence, unlawful detention”. It “completely fractured relationships between people of different political stances,” she added.
