A PhD student who fled the city after receiving a fine for semen-splashing assault could be arrested by a warrant issued by Hong Kong.

Appearing before Magistrate Li Chi-ho at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, the prosecution was seeking a heavier sentence for 26-year-old Lai Changwei, according to local media.

Citing immigration records, the prosecution told the court that the mainland Chinese PhD student had left Hong Kong on January 12 and had not re-entered the city since, adding that it would apply for an arrest warrant.

Lai, a neuroscience PhD student at the City University of Hong Kong at the time of the offence, was fined HK$5,000 last September after pleading guilty to splashing water mixed with his semen onto a woman’s buttocks at the university.

According to case details read out in court last year, Lai had confessed to “accidentally” splashing the liquid on the woman.
Magistrate Li handed down the fine in September after deciding that Lai had made no direct bodily contact with the woman or her intimate areas and that he did not commit the act on public transport, “relative” to other indecent assault cases.

‘No real consequences’
Concern groups have called for a stronger sentence, saying the penalty sent a message that sexual violence has “no real consequences.”

The victim, identified only as X in court, earlier said that the court’s sentence had failed to take into account her rights and needs as a victim, “but, more importantly, it has not truly meted out punishment that takes into account the serious consequences of such criminal behaviour.”