A veteran Hong Kong government worker could be jailed for up to three years and lose his pension worth HK$5 million (US$638,590) after a magistrate found him guilty of molesting a domestic helper on 13 occasions last year.

Senior leisure manager Bar Ting-ming, who worked at the Leisure and Cultural Services Department for three decades, was convicted on Monday at West Kowloon Court of 13 counts of indecent assault for kissing and touching his helper between March 11 and June 25 in 2021.

The court heard the victim, who was in her 20s, left her home country of Indonesia in January last year to earn a living in Hong Kong.

The 56-year-old civil servant assaulted the helper twice in his vehicle when he was driving the victim to her employment agency to collect her Hong Kong ID card on March 11.

Bar molested the helper four times on three other dates in March and April in the living room and bathroom of his two-storey house in Pak Sha Tsuen in Yuen Long where the victim worked and lived.

On the sixth occasion, the woman videotaped the crime and filed a complaint to her employment agent, but was instead told to settle the matter with HK$3,000 in compensation. She agreed after her employer said he would not lay his hands on her again.

The peace that followed did not last long, however, with Bar breaking the promise in June and assaulting the victim seven times in 12 days.

Most of the incidents involved contact such as kissing and touching of non-sensitive body parts like the shoulders and abdomen. The victim also testified that she could feel her employer’s genitals getting erect when he kissed her neck on June 25.

The defence had challenged the helper’s credibility, pointing to apparent discrepancies in her written accounts and oral evidence in court.

But Magistrate Andy Cheng Lim-chi found the victim honest and reliable, noting that she still retained vivid memories of most of the incidents despite occasional mistakes in her testimony. Instead, he rejected Bar’s assertion that he was simply giving her a massage.

Cheng expressed sympathy for the victim, who had initially remained silent in fear of losing her job.

He rejected the defence’s suggestion that the allegations could have been fabricated for monetary gain, noting the victim had made no attempts to extort money from her employer after each incident.

“I do not believe the accused came into contact with [the victim] simply to comfort her or express concern for her well-being,” the magistrate said. “The so-called massages on the shoulders and abdomen were simply excuses for his sexual advances.”

In mitigation, defence counsel Lisa d’Almada Remedios said Bar would very likely be sacked and lose his HK$5 million pension after an internal disciplinary hearing because of the criminal proceedings.

The lawyer said Bar would also lose a monthly income of HK$111,000, which would make it difficult for him to financially support his son and daughter, who are currently pursuing university degrees in Hong Kong and Germany, respectively.

But the magistrate ruled out any possibility of a non-custodial sentence, saying the case involved a breach of trust and warranted jail time. He granted the defendant bail until sentencing on April 7 for him to prepare mitigation letters.

Indecent assault is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but capped at three years when the case is tried before a magistrate.