Hong Kong police displaying evidence on Thursday in the case of a suspected serial sex attacker who was believed to have molested three women as he rode past on his electric bicycle over the past five months. Photo: Facebook
Hong Kong police have arrested a suspected serial sex attacker who was believed to have molested three women as he rode past on his electric bicycle on three separate occasions in Tsuen Wan over the past five months.
The 42-year-old man, a hawker, was detained on Thursday after officers raided his public housing flat in Kwai Shing West Estate in Kwai Chung at about 9am. An electric bicycle inside the flat was also seized.
Sex attacker groped 10 women when pretending to brush off insects, police say
As of Thursday afternoon, the suspect was still being held for questioning and had not been charged. Detectives from the Tsuen Wan district crime squad are investigating.
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Senior Inspector Lo Pik-ka of the unit said the three victims, including two students, were aged between 20 and 29 and they were alone at the time of the incidents, which occurred after midnight.
She said she believed the suspect randomly selected his targets, who were young and alone on the street at night.
The first incident took place outside a shopping centre called Skyline Plaza on Tai Ho Road in the small hours of March 9. The senior inspector said the rider indecently touched the victim’s breast and fled on the electric bicycle.
The man allegedly repeated the act in the Tsuen Wan section of Castle Peak Road on May 4. The third incident happened outside the H Cube residential block in Yeung Uk Road soon after midnight on August 4.
Lo said officers identified the suspect after poring over closed circuit TV footage.
She said police were investigating whether there had been other cases and whether the man was linked to them.
In Hong Kong, the offence of indecent assault carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, she warned.
The senior inspector urged female residents to ask their family members or friends to pick them up if they were going home alone at night.
According to official statistics, police handled 286 reports of indecent assault across the city in the first half of this year, down 50 per cent from the 573 cases in the same period last year.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
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