Mong Kok rioter jailed for 46 months in Hong Kong for role in 2016 clashes
- Amy Pat Wai-fun threw objects into a fire and also dug up bricks which were later used by some protesters to attack riot police on February 9
- While the judge was sympathetic towards Pat, who had an intellectual disability, he said it could not be used as an excuse to ‘evade criminal liabilities’
A Hong Kong woman found guilty of rioting in the civil unrest in one of the city’s busiest districts three years ago was on Tuesday sentenced to 46 months in jail.
Judge Ernest Michael Lin Kam-hung refused to sentence Pat, who has an intellectual disability, to probation as recommended by the probation officer, saying the offence was serious and such an order would have sent out the wrong message to society.
Psychiatrists were of the view that although Pat had the cognitive ability of a 10- to 12-year-old child, her impairment did not affect her ability to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the offence.
The District Court heard Pat had dug up bricks from a pavement with at least nine others, as some 150 masked protesters gathered at Sai Yeung Choi Street South in the early hours of February 9. Pat passed the bricks to other protesters, who then hurled them towards a police cordon.
