5 May 2016
Man jailed for 60 days
after sex assault
A Chinese man who tried
to have his conviction for sexually assaulting a woman in a bus station thrown
out because he claimed his plea to the charges had been lost in translation was
today (Thursday) jailed.
Loi Li
lost a six-month battle to retract his guilty plea over repeatedly stroking a woman’s
bottom at Arbroath Bus Station on Catherine Street on September 14 2014.
Loi “took
umbrage” with a Chinese interpreter he had been assigned.
The
assault was admitted by Loi last March but it emerged his interpreter in the
dock spoke a different Chinese language.
Forfar
Sheriff Court heard Loi spoke the Sino-Tibetan language Hakka and had been
given an interpreter who spoke the more mainstream Cantonese dialect.
However,
a sheriff was told that the opinion of another interpreter was that the
Cantonese for “guilty” and “not guilty” were sufficiently different that Loi
could not have misunderstood his plea.
A legal
application to withdraw his plea was subsequently rejected and in mid-February
Sheriff Gregor Murray remanded him, saying the accused was “the author of his
own misfortune”.
He said
at that hearing: “Every part of this case has been delayed following your
original plea of guilty. The latest delay I do not find to be acceptable in any
way.
“Considerable
money has been wasted to date in this case and I want to be certain that there
is an interpreter and you are there at the same time and place.” […]
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