A trainee Christian counsellor with a shoe fetish has been given a 240-hour community service order after admitting to stealing a woman’s shoe from a flat.
The case marked the third time that 28-year-old Li Cheuk-yin had been caught pinching footwear, with the court hearing he had grappled with a shoe fetish for 20 years.
Earlier this month, Li admitted to the District Court that on March 17 last year after visiting a traditional Chinese doctor on the first floor of a tenement building in Tsuen Wan, he was struck by the urge to look for women’s shoes.
He then continued upstairs to the fourth floor where he found a flat with a shoe rack behind an unlocked gate.
But when Li exited the building, he caught the attention of a police officer, who chased him down and discovered the stolen footwear, a pink leather flat.
Ming Pao reported that the judge — citing a psychological and psychiatric report on the defendant — noted that Li was suffering from fetishism, and had low self-confidence.
The judge said that for a typical burglary case, the sentence would be three months in prison. However, the judge acknowledged that this was not a typical burglary case because the defendant did not enter a room hoping to steal valuable items and only took a shoe from outside the apartment.
According to Apple Daily, the shoes were worth about HK$150 (US$19).
Li had been previously caught pilfering ladies footwear, once in 2012 and again in 2014.
Arguing for leniency, Li’s defense noted that, following media coverage of the case, their client had lost the confidence of people around him.
When passing down the sentence, the judge said he hoped that the defendant’s experience in court would deter him from committing a similar crime in the future.
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