In response to this week’s shocking news that two apparent prostitutes were murdered in Hong Kong, allegedly at the hands of 29-year-old British banker Rurik Jutting, another British banker has told CNN how leaving the city saved his life.
Writing anonymously from outside the territory where he is now receiving help for his addictions, the man describes a debaucherous scene where cocaine and prostitutes are readily available in Wan Chai, a place where “you knew you weren’t going to get into trouble with the law.”
The writer begins by stating that his first reaction to the news about the Wan Chai murders was ‘Please don’t be someone I know”. While this may seem unlikely to many, he asserts, “I knew some guys who were seriously screwed up and now I realise just how much I had changed in Hong Kong, almost inhuman at times.”
The writer confesses that he was offered cocaine within his first week in Hong Kong, and was snorting a gram four or more times a week at the height of his addiction.
He added that it was easy to keep partying for days on end “because there are a couple of bars in Wan Chai that stay open until 9am. And then when one of those kicks you out you can just walk across the road to another bar that’s opening at 9am, as long as you can make it across the road without being hit.”
The former banker describes being able to order cocaine on the phone before picking it up, sometimes only ten minutes later, from his “guy”. “Of the hundred nights that I wanted to get cocaine, I think I can only remember one night when I couldn’t get any.”
As cocaine use became so normalised, almost like an “unofficial club”, the recovering addict says it was typical for himself and his colleagues to disappear from work for several days. “People would be trying to get hold of them [his colleagues] but you kind of knew, ‘they’re alright, they’re just in a bar somewhere, on cocaine, and they’ll turn up in a few days looking ashamed and promising they won’t do it again, for a week’.”
The writer had a shock to the system when he finally moved to another city (we don’t know where) and found there were no girly bars open all night and cocaine was difficult to get hold of.
Ending by referring to his struggle with addiction, he says, “I wouldn’t have got out of it in Hong Kong. I would have been destroyed. Leaving Hong Kong saved my life.”
Rurik Jutting did not enter a plea as he was charged with two counts of murder today.
Photo: Pixabay
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