Activist Jailed 32 Months For Molesting Children

The District Court on Wednesday sentenced an ethnic minority rights activist to two years and eight months in prison for molesting two young children who he was helping look after, and filming some of the assaults.

James Lung, 46, plead guilty to seven offences, including indecent conduct towards a child under the age of 16, indecent assault, and producing and possessing child pornography.

Lung, chairman of the Southern Democratic Alliance, admitted to fondling and taking video of two victims, identified only as X and Y in court.

They were only six, and three years old respectively at the time of the offences in 2019.

He was arrested in May last year after X’s brother caught him in the act and filmed him touching his sister’s private parts.

Authorities later found video of the three-year-old on his phone, naked and touching his private parts.

Lung’s lawyer plead for leniency, saying a psychiatrist’s report showed that his client was sexually deviant, and has suffered from depression since his mother’s death.

The lawyer also said his client truly believed that X would grow up to be his lover.

However, District Court judge Sham Siu-man dismissed this claim, saying Lung had only posed as a defender of the needy to fulfill his abnormal sexual desires.

He noted that an psychological assessment of X showed she had been traumatised by the acts, which he said could affect her for life.

However, he agreed that Lung’s actions were not among the worst child sex crimes, and sentenced him to 32 months in prison, after deducting a third of the jail time for his guilty plea.

The judge said he could only “place great hope” that the defendant would not re-offend after receiving therapy.