A Hong Kong court has heard new evidence in the case of a 15-year-old girl who accused her father of rape and indecent assault after the victim was reportedly whisked across mainland China. She was later persuaded by other relatives to retract her rape allegations for the upcoming trial.
Prosecutors reopened the case this week against five of the girl’s family members, including her 44-year-old father, 42-year-old mother, paternal grandfather, 65, paternal grandmother, 67, and uncle, 35. All of them stand accused of perverting the course of justice.
The suspects and the victim cannot be identified in court following a gag order to protect the young victim, referred to as "X" in the court.
The High Court first heard the case on Oct. 14, 2017, when the mother brought then 13-year-old X to Sheung Shui Police Station, assisting her in lodging a formal complaint of sexual abuse against her father, referred to as "L.C.L." in court documents.
It subsequently led to the arrest of the patriarch, who was remanded in custody pending trial on two counts of rape and five counts of indecent assaults after he allegedly forced himself on his daughter at least seven times between 2015 and 2017.
The prosecution further pressed that L.C.L threatened to take his own life if his daughter told anyone about the sex crimes.
The proceedings began in the High Court on Oct. 25, 2018, where the prosecution summoned the minor and her mother as witnesses.
However, both failed to take the stand after investigations unraveled that the mother had visited the father at Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre on Oct. 20 that year. She then fled for Shenzhen the same afternoon with her daughter in tow, according to SCMP.
Authorities had secured a warrant for the matriarch's arrest, seizing the suspect on Nov. 4 upon returning to the city with X via the Lok Ma Chau checkpoint.
Victim X then went under cross-examination by her father's defense counsel on Jan. 21, 2019. At the time, the court heard that the girl confessed to fabricating the rape accusations to frame L.C.L. after initially admitting to the same intentions in a pre-recorded video interview.
She told the High Court that she only lied out of anger over L.C.L.'s favoritism towards her younger brother, insisting that she went as far as faking medical evidence to back her claims, according to Yahoo! News.
The trial judge then ruled that the father had no case to answer and directed the jury to acquit the man of all charges, paving the way for his release after serving 15 months in jail.
However, the next day, the 15-year-old allegedly claimed that her paternal grandparents and uncle had contacted her before she testified, urging her to abandon her legal battle against her father. She then reportedly explained why she had left Hong Kong, according to prosecutor Flora Cheng Suk-yee.
The new allegations sparked another police investigation, prompting officers to review visitation logs and recordings from Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre. Evidence then suggested that the mother, the grandparents, and the uncle had repeatedly visited the father, who instructed them to change the girl’s narrative in the courts.
It led to the arrest of the victim's parents and the grandmother on Jan. 23, while the grandfather and uncle were apprehended by law enforcement a week later.
L.C.L. and his wife pleaded not guilty to one count of doing an act tending and intent to pervert the course of public justice as the father, uncle, and grandparents strenuously denied another count of conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice.
The girl will front court on Tuesday for a jury trial to testify before Justice Alex Lee Wan-tang.
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