Jailed for criminal intimidation, man returns to squatter home in park worrying neighbours

A man jailed for a month for criminal intimidation has returned to his squatter house in To Kwa Peng in Sai Kung country park, continuing to frighten at least one of his neighbours. Our reader who we shan’t identify for obvious reasons says,  “I am extremely disappointed and wonder if justice has actually been served”.

The man, who appears to be mentally unstable, is aggressive, our informant says, on his regular water collecting trips. He lives in a squatter house whose owner shows no desire to evict him. The neighbour said she and her helper saw him try to kick a cow in the head recently. The cow veered away.

The African’s conviction came on 14 December. The court decided he was guilty of criminal intimidation after he twice threatened to kill a woman neighbour — once on a jetty at To Kwa Peng and another time on a path in the same area. He wielded a heavy log near her. His sentence was two weeks on each offence to be served concurrently. The neighbour said his anger was apparently caused by her walking near his squatter house. She didn’t know it was occupied. He videoed her from an upstairs window. She was “startled and angry”, telling him he was illegally squatting and she would ask the police to intervene.

In court the man’s pro bono lawyer (the same one who got him off an assault charge two years ago, according to our informant) showed the video. This plus the neighbour’s earlier evidence resulted in the man being convicted and sentenced.

The neighbour said a lawyer who lives in the area and knows the case had concluded the man would not be deported because he is married to a local women. She does not live with him.

“Residents of the Sai Kung country park must now tolerate this unstable person for eternity it seems,” our informant said.