‘A very sick individual’: Hong Kong student convicted of 12 sexual offences against underage girls gets 10 years in prison
A Hong Kong man convicted of 12 sexual offences involving underage girls has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
High Court Judge Andrew Chan on Thursday called Fan Chi-yuen, a 22-year-old associate degree student in psychology at the time of the offences, “a very sick individual” who saw all girls as “targets” and wanted “nothing other than sex” from his victims.
Fan pleaded guilty in September to 12 offences including attempted rape, attempted sexual intercourse with a girl under 16, indecent assault, and possession and production of child pornography. The offences involved nine victims, among whom four could be identified and were granted anonymity orders designating them as A, Z, Y, and X.
Five other victims could not be identified, but police recovered nude photos of them from Fan’s mobile phone.
The offences took place between June 1, 2022 and September 28, 2023. The court heard during earlier proceedings that Fan met his victims on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, and committed the assaults on buses and in hostels.
X, then 14 years old, was indecently assaulted by Fan. Fan also attempted to have sexual intercourse with X and requested pornographic images from her in August 2023.
💡If you are in need of support, please call: The Samaritans 2896 0000 (24-hour, multilingual), Suicide Prevention Centre 2382 0000 or the gov’t mental health hotline on 18111. The Hong Kong Society of Counselling and Psychology provides a WhatsApp hotline in English and Chinese: 6218 1084. See also: HKFP’s mental health services guide.
She died by suicide two weeks after the assault.
X’s mother later read messages on X’s iPad that revealed she had been sexually assaulted shortly before her death. Her mother reported the case to the police, bringing Fan’s offences to their attention.
A clinical psychologist assessed that Fan had a medium-to-high risk of reoffending, as he showed no remorse or empathy towards his victims and displayed no grief when discussing X’s suicide, High Court Judge Chan said.
The court handed down the 10-year sentence in consideration of his guilty plea.
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Irene Chan is a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press and has an interest in covering political and social change. She previously worked at Initium Media as chief editor for Hong Kong news and was a community organiser at the Society for Community Organisation serving the underprivileged. She has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Fudan University and a master’s degree in social work from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Irene is the recipient of two Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) awards and three honourable mentions for her investigative, feature and video reporting. She also received a Human Rights Press Award for multimedia reporting and an honourable mention for feature writing.
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