A 48-year-old Hong Kong father was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to obstructing or attempting to obstruct the course of justice. L.W.D., a concrete-pump operator, admitted asking his daughter not to report allegations that her two older brothers had sexually abused her.
The case concerned events on 6 May 2020. According to prosecution facts reported by Ming Pao, the daughter, identified as X, told a social worker that day that both brothers had sexually abused her when she was in primary school. Her family arranged for her to stay at her maternal grandmother’s home.
L.W.D. later told police in a recorded interview that he asked X to give the brothers a chance, forgive them and not report them because he did not want the family to break apart. He made a further request during a meal that day, and the report said both father and daughter cried.
X repeated the allegations to another social worker in November 2021, after which the matter was reported to police. The supplied reports describe proceedings involving the brothers, but do not establish convictions against either of them. They also give differing accounts of the procedural outcome of those cases.
The court accepted that L.W.D. had been dealing with a difficult family situation and that his conduct did not involve sustained pressure or sophisticated planning. It also considered that he admitted wrongdoing in a cautioned recorded interview and did not challenge the interview’s admissibility.
The judge described the alleged underlying offences as serious, but regarded the case as exceptional and L.W.D.’s culpability as relatively low. X wrote in mitigation for her father and hoped the case would end so he could reunite with the family overseas and start a new life. His sentence remains suspended for two years.