The saga of two men who got into a knock-down, drag-out brawl on an MTR train — which ended when one bit off the tip of the other’s thumb — came to a shockingly tame conclusion this week, with a court dropping charges against both men.
According to the South China Morning Post, prosecutors on Tuesday decided to withdraw the charges against Yu Wai-keung, 54, and Tong Kang-choi, 64, opting instead to place the two men under a so-called “bind-over agreement,” an arrangement akin to a restraining order in which both parties must agree to “keep the peace” for a set period of time or forfeit a cash sum — in this case for 12 months, or cough up HK$1,000 (about US$127).
Both men were also ordered to pay HK$300 in court costs.
The subdued, sensible resolution to the case stood in stark contrast to its origins.
Last June, the two men found themselves in the same crowded Tsuen Wan Line MTR train at around 9am. As the train was leaving Prince Edward Station, heading towards Central, the two men got into an argument about one purportedly being in the other’s way.
Things escalated quickly, and the men were soon at each other’s throats. Other passengers only intervened to break up the brawl when Yu bit off the tip of Tong’s thumb.
Yu, meanwhile, suffered scratches to his face, and injuries to his eye after Tong jammed his finger in it.
The craziest part of the story, however, is that the MTR didn’t appear to skip a beat throughout the entire incident. The altercation kicked off at Prince Edward, the pair were arrested when the train pulled into Mong Kok, MTR workers boarded the train at Jordan to retrieve the piece of severed thumb, and had managed to locate it and turn it over to paramedics by the time the train reached Central eight minutes later.
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