Ex-HK principal accused of molesting 4 teachers
Scared teachers wore jackets for protection
November 01, 2007
HONG KONG
THE former headmaster of a primary school in Hong Kong has denied 13 counts of indecent assault involving female teachers after his lawyer claimed he was framed.
The incidents allegedly took place between September 2000 and June last year.
So Yau-hang, 53, former headmaster of Yan Oi Tong Tin Ka Ping Primary School in Tseung Kwan, was accused of molesting four teachers, The Standard reported.
The women were identified in court as witnesses A, B, C and D.
Most of the incidents allegedly occurred in So's office except for one that allegedly took place in Witness A's car, and another on a school staircase.
Witness A said that So had molested her several times over the years in his office. Once he put his arm around her waist and touched her panties, she said. Another time, he flipped the band of her bra.
The same woman accused So of putting his hand on her thigh as she drove to a school meeting.
She claimed that he also touched her buttocks 'to see what effect your gym work had on your bum'.
She added: 'It was the consensus among female teachers that they needed to wear jackets before entering the headmaster's room to protect themselves.'
She confided in her boyfriend, but he accused her of not doing enough to protect herself. And they later broke up.
She didn't tell anyone at school about the alleged molests until January this year until she approached schools' supervisor Dennis Tin Ding-sin. She then made a police report together with other teachers.
But in court, So's lawyer Alan So said that Witness A was framing the headmaster a day before he was to announce the damning results of an investigation into the territory-wide system assessment, where Witnesses A and D were accused of cheating and were likely to be reprimanded.
The Education and Manpower Bureau confirmed that the school was investigated for cheating during last year's assessment of English-language competency.
The defence claimed that Mr Tin had told the teachers that their allegations could only be defined as 'sexual harassment', not 'indecent assault'.
Witness B, who claimed that So had touched her on the neck or breast on two occasions, admitted that she did not tell him to stop.
She claimed that she hadn't reported the incidents out of fear of putting her pupils in jeopardy and because it was 'a shameful thing to talk about. You need a lot of courage to speak up'.
However she also admitted that she had invited So to stay at her mother's house on the mainland for a few days.
But she said her friends and future husband were also invited.
Of her feelings toward So, she said: 'I respect him as a diligent headmaster, but I cannot accept his behaviour towards me.'
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