A depressed unemployed man who posted messages online about rape, indecent assault, murder and blowing up the chief executive's house is out of touch with society, a magistrate says.
Former coffee shop employee Chan Wing-leung, 24, was put on 18 months' probation and ordered to be admitted to a rehabilitation centre. He had pleaded guilty to four counts of outraging public decency.
Sentencing him in Tuen Mun Court yesterday, Principal Magistrate Kwok Wai-kin said Chan avoided interpersonal relationships. His only attempts at human contact, via the internet, were unsuccessful.
'Even when [he] spoke of committing suicide, no one paid attention,' Kwok said.
On December 4, Chan started four threads on an online forum within an hour. He posted: 'Where in HK can one rape a female student without being caught so easily?'; 'I want to make a bomb to blow up [Donald] Tsang Yam-kuen's house; what ingredients do I need?'; 'I am the thick-rimmed bespectacled sex maniac; it feels great to indecently assault females', and 'My life is crappy - I can kill one person for you for $10,000.'
Kwok said Chan had committed criminal offences, because there was a limit to the freedom of speech.
The magistrate said the messages were offensive, as they caused anxiety and promoted violence, even though Chan had told a psychologist he did not intend to act on them.
'You cannot think that you are in your own world and say things without thinking,' Kwok said, adding that the messages were 'disgusting' and 'indecent'.
Kwok said Chan had low self-esteem and had said he had been bullied by his classmates. While Chan's offences were serious enough to warrant a prison term, Kwok said the paramount concern was his rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Locking him up would not address his psychological problems.
