{"id":401642,"date":"2026-01-09T09:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401642\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T09:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:03:07","slug":"hong-kong-rugby-player-charged-with-indecent-assault-and-criminal-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401642\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong rugby player charged with indecent assault and criminal damage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A Hong Kong professional rugby player has been accused of molesting a patron at a bar and damaging a door bolt inside a police station while he was held in custody.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Faizal Solomona Penesa, 33, on Friday appeared at Eastern Court for the first time over a count of indecent assault and another of criminal damage.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Prosecutors accused the Samoan national of indecently assaulting an individual at Bobby\u2019s Rabble bar in Central on September 28 last year.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">On the same day, he was taken to the Central Police Station, where he damaged a door bolt while being placed in a temporary holding area.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">His lawyer told Principal Magistrate David Cheung Chi-wai that his client had no previous criminal record in Hong Kong and sought an adjournment to review the prosecution\u2019s legal documents.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Prosecutors said that Solomona Penesa did not know the victim, having only met the person at the bar that night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hong Kong professional rugby player has been accused of molesting a patron at a bar and damaging&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,213521,505,213528,213522,213523,213524,10340,213526,37484,213525,760,213527,85],"class_list":["post-401642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bar-bobbys-rabble","tag-central","tag-central-police-station","tag-david-cheung-chi-wai","tag-eastern-court","tag-faizal-solomona-penesa","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-china-rugby-union","tag-indecent-assault","tag-molesting","tag-rugby","tag-samoan","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}