Primary school teacher Hong Yat-ming was sentenced to six and a half years in prison yesterday for molesting and sodomizing his 11-year-old star student.

During sentencing, a stoic 27-year-old Hong glanced periodically at his visibly anguished parents, who were seated in the public gallery when High Court Justice Michael Lunn's recounted the lurid details of misconduct towards the boy.

Hong had pled guilty to buggery with a man under 21 and indecent conduct towards a child under 16.

The offenses involved numerous molestations, which escalated to unprotected oral and anal sex in bathrooms of educational institutions between February 2008 and July 2009.

Referring to stacks of letters from Hong's colleagues, students and their parents, Lunn said, "It is clear from the volume of letters that your work as a school teacher was highly appreciated."

Lunn granted more than the one-third leniency reserved for guilty pleas, citing Hong's admission of culpability to the victim's mother prior to his arrest, his full cooperation with police and his guilty pleas, which spared the boy from having to testify in court.

During mitigation, Hong's counsel Andrew Leung said his client was under intense pressure caused by his passionate dedication to teaching - a commitment that had earned him the nickname of Mr Metal.

Citing a psychological report, Leung said Hong was under duress from repressing all of his sexual desires.

Hong had no prior sexual experience before the offenses, had never been hugged, kissed or physically intimate in any way with his girlfriend of four years, Leung said.

The report stated that Hong "may be developing pedophilic tendencies" and has a strong attraction to children between the ages of 10 and 12.

It classified Hong's risk of re-offending as low to moderate.

Calling the successive incidents "a lapse in judgment" brought on by the weight of Hong's repressed sexual frustrations, Leung said Hong "engaged in the sex acts to release stress."

He added that the acts between Hong and the student had been consensual.

The first indecent act occurred in early 2008 when Hong took the boy to a washroom in their school and molested him under the pretext that he was checking on the boy's physical development.

Later in the year, Hong took the boy to a washroom at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and had the boy perform oral sex on him.

On two other occasions Hong had anal sex with the boy without using a condom.

The court heard that Hong also molested the boy during a taxi ride and asked him to perform other sex acts.

The offenses became known when the boy revealed the molestations to his mother, who contacted a child sexual abuse hotline on June 21, 2009. Health personnel performed a series of tests, which showed that the boy had not contracted any sexually transmitted diseases. On July 23, 2009, they notified police who arrested Hong.

(HK Edition 03/11/2010 page1)