Court Acquits Avery Ng In Loudhailer Noise Case

Activist Avery Ng was on Monday acquitted of causing noise annoyance with a loudhailer when he was speaking at a street booth outside Whampoa MTR station on May 16th.

The League of Social Democrats activist pleaded not guilty to a count of causing noise annoyance from sound magnifier to a man who lives in the area.

The court heard that the man already felt annoyed when he heard the loudhailer sound from his home, which is about 300 metres from where Ng spoke.

He then left home and headed to a nearby restaurant with his wife when he saw Mr Ng speaking with a loudhailer.

He complained that he couldn't talk to his wife and worried it might endanger pedestrians if they couldn't hear cars beeping their horns.

The witness called the police from the restaurant, which was about 100 metres away from where Ng spoke.

However, magistrate June Cheung questioned the witness's statement, saying his description was vague and adding that she wasn't sure if the sound of the loudhailer reached the restaurant.

She said the crux of the case was whether reasonable people would also find the noise intolerable, and also cited that there was no evidence given of the the decibel level at the time of the incident.

Cheung said the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and ordered them to pay the defence's costs.

Speaking after the verdict, Ng described the Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecution as "absurd".

"The DoJ wasted a lot of public resources to prosecute me. Thankfully the magistrate there's no reasonable ground to convict me," he said.