Police commissioner acknowledges frustration among the ranks while supporters plan protest
Hong Kong’s police force was gripped by emotions ranging from dismay to open outrage as a court on Friday jailed seven officers for two years for beating up an activist who had assaulted their colleagues during an Occupy protest more than two years ago.
In a public show of support for his men, Police Commissioner Stephen Lo Wai-chung faced the media to announce that he had approved a campaign by staff unions to raise money for the jailed officers while they discussed the possibility of an appeal.
【Now新聞台】七名警員毆打曾健超案，全部被告各判監兩年，不准緩刑。
第一被告總督察黃祖成由囚車押到區域法院。他與其餘六名被告，高級督察劉卓毅、警長白榮斌、警員劉興沛、關嘉豪、黃偉豪及陳少丹，襲擊致造成他人身體傷害罪名成立。
法官杜大衛判刑時表示，今次案情嚴重，七名被告獲授權執法，但其間卻違反法律，而事件在國際有所報道，影響香港的聲譽，要判處有阻嚇性刑罰。
杜大衛表示，原本考慮判處七名被告監禁2年6個月，但考慮到各人背景，擔任警務人員服務社會，故此減刑至監禁兩年。而第五被告陳少丹另一項普通襲擊罪就判監一個月，同期執行。
“I have a heavy heart and mixed feelings,” he said. “ I can totally understand why my colleagues are disappointed and frustrated.”
The man they were filmed kicking and punching 28 months ago, social worker Ken Tsang Kin-chiu, hailed their punishment as “a minor victory for civil society against police violence”. Tsang is currently appealing his own five-week prison sentence for assault.
District Court judge David Dufton said in passing sentence that there was “no justification” for the “vicious assault” on a “defenceless” Tsang outside a substation in Admiralty on October 15, 2014.
“The defendants have not only brought dishonour to the Hong Kong Police Force they have also damaged Hong Kong’s reputation in the international community, the assault having been widely viewed around the world and reported as front-page news in a number of countries,” he said.
The highly controversial ruling and sentencing has reignited tensions that first exploded during the 79-day civil disobedience movement of 2014, when thousands of protesters occupied major thoroughfares to demand greater democracy.
Dufton had originally slapped a jail term of two years and six months on each officer over their joint conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment.
But he reduced it by six months after considering the circumstances at the time and the great stress that police were under in handling the Occupy movement. He also took into account the officers’ clear records and service to the community, as well as their dismissal from the force and likelihood of losing their pensions.
Hong Kong police chief ‘saddened’ by conviction of seven officers in Occupy assault case
The seven are: Chief Inspector Wong Cho-shing, 50; Senior Inspector Lau Cheuk-ngai, 31; Detective Sergeant Pak Wing-bun, 43; Constable Lau Hing-pui, 39; and Detective Constables Wong Wai-ho, 38, Chan Siu-tan, 33, and Kwan Ka-ho, 33. They remained expressionless in the dock when the sentence was delivered.
Chan alone was sentenced to one more month on one count of common assault for twice slapping Tsang at a police station, to be served concurrently with the longer jail term.
Pro-democracy activist Lui Yuk-lin broke into applause in the public gallery, shouting “Yay, judge!” 
But angry supporters began chanting, “appeal, appeal”, while one started wailing so hard that court security offered her a room to calm down.
Joe Chan Cho-kwong, chairman of the Junior Police Officers’ Association, summed up the outrage among frontline officers, calling the sentences shocking and unacceptable.
Innes Tang Tak-shing, chairman of pro-government activist group PolitiHK Social Strategic, vowed to hold a protest on Saturday.
“[The sentence] is so severe that it’s unbelievable,” he said. “They should see how angry we are.”
Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung called for the public to be rational and fair, insisting that such rulings were based solely on evidence and law.
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