Teen gets community service for pressing emergency engine stop button on bus

A 16-year-old has been sentenced to 80 hours of community service for pressing the emergency engine stop of two buses in Mong Kok during the unrest last December. 

Mak Hang pleaded guilty to obstructing traffic on December 11, last year after he pressed the emergency engine stop buttons of two New World First buses – a tactic used by protesters to use buses to obstruct roads - at the junction of Nathan Road and Nelson Street in Mong Kok.

He was charged for doing an act whereby obstruction may accrue to traffic and appeared before West Kowloon Court principal magistrate Peter Law Tak-chuen today.

“The severity of a community service order is equivalent to imprisonment, do not take the sentence lightly,” Law told Mak. 

A least six Kowloon Motor and New World First double-deck buses’ engines were shut down on Nathan Road, Argyle Street and Nelson Street in Mong Kok at around 8 pm on December 11, last year as a group of black-clad people pressed the emergency engine stop buttons at the back of those buses.

Law said several of those buses’ emergency exits were damaged, one of the drivers saw the group hitting the rear of the bus using flashlights.

Mak, who was amongst the black-clad group, was spotted by two patrol police officers for pressing the emergency engine stop button of a New World First bus. He was arrested on the scene.

Defendant counsel suggested Law not to sentence Mak to a probation order, saying that the comments given to the defendant from the reports of the probation order and suitability reports of the community service order are positive.