Voyeur disguised himself as a schoolgirl

A 31-year-old man has been jailed for six months for voyeurism after he disguised himself as a pupil and entered a female toilet in a school to plant a hidden camera.

Principal Magistrate Ko Waihung yesterday said Cheung Chun-hong, a senior operations officer at Citybus, had seriously invaded the privacy of pupils at the Good Hope School in Wong Tai Sin.

“The crime is more severe as the victims are underage and their school is a place where they expect their privacy to be protected,” Ko said.

Kowloon City Court heard that Cheung had sneaked into a bathroom stall at the girls’ school last October dressed in its uniform and wearing make-up.

Two pupils discovered Cheung and also found a mobile phone he planted inside the stall. Cheung escaped but was arrested at an industrial unit in San Po Kong four days later.

Officers found 16 sets of girls’ school uniforms, female undergarments, wigs and make-up after searching the site and his home in Tseung Kwan O.

Ko said he believed Cheung intended to enter the school, rejecting the defence argument that he ran inside in a panic after being caught taking photos outside the campus.

The act of planting a phone in the bathroom was more severe than simply trying to look inside briefly, Ko added.

“I cannot rule out the possibility that the defendant would have saved and distributed the footage obtained if he hadn’t been discovered,” he said.

Cheung had pleaded guilty to the three charges and was remanded to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre until sentencing. The defence counsel in mitigation asked Ko to consider Cheung’s guilty plea, remorse and ongoing psychological treatment.

Ko said he had considered a psychology report which noted Cheung had a medium-to-high possibility of committing similar crimes again.

“Cross-dressing is a personal preference but cross-dressing to commit crimes to satisfy one’s sexual desire is unacceptable. The court must interfere to protect the interests of minors and reflect society’s disgust,” Ko said.