A street workout champion (yes, apparently that’s a thing) appeared in court yesterday over accusations that he took an upskirt video of an 18-year-old high school student riding on an escalator.
Nicholas Wong Wai-fung, 24, is a three-time winner of the Hong Kong Street Workout Championship, and an executive committee member of Street Workout Hong Kong (SWHK), which was set up in 2014 to promote the purported sport in Hong Kong.
For the uninitiated, street workout is performed mostly in outdoor parks, and resembles a gymnastics routine without the pointed toes, with participants hurling themselves onto and around park equipment. Part of the allure of the sport is that it’s free.
Here’s a video from the 2018 street workout championships in Hong Kong:
Wong has also given a number of interviews to local media outlets promoting the sport, including this 20-minute RTHK program, where he shows the basics of street workout to four busy Hongkongers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wC0KGeFH2c
But anyway, swinging back to the court case, Wong appeared at Kowloon City Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged with one count of committing an act outraging public decency. He pleaded not guilty, Ming Pao reports.
The court heard testimony from the alleged victim, an 18-year-old identified as “X,” who said she was taking an ascending escalator to Tsz Ching Estate after going to after-school classes one October evening.
She recalled standing on the right-hand side of the escalator, with Wong standing two steps behind her.
When they got to the top of the escalator, a man who had been standing behind Wong named Tsui Wai told X that he spotted Wong crouching slightly and filming underneath her skirt.
The court heard that Wong apologized and allegedly took the phone out to delete the clip. Tsui tried to get the phone out of Wong’s hands before he could hit the delete button, but was too late, and X told the court that before Wong hit delete, she saw an image on his phone that looked like the back of her school skirt.
Tsui also testified in court that as he was trying to snatch the phone out of Wong’s hands, he noticed other videos on Wong’s phone that looked like they were taken on escalators.
An officer arrived at the scene and searched Wong’s phone, but couldn’t find the video.
Wong’s defense attorney argued that Wong couldn’t have possibly been filming upskirt videos, noting that Wong, Tsui, and X were all standing on the right-hand side of the escalator while others walked upwards on the left, which would have made it difficult for him to film.
The defense counsel also added that X’s skirt had been slim-fitting and covered the knee, and that Wong was carrying a plastic carrier bag at the time, all of which would have made it difficult to film an upskirt clip.
Deputy magistrate Nam Hoi-yan adjourned the case until Thursday.
