The Public Security Police (PSP) arrested a non-resident worker from the Philippines – a repeat offender – last Friday for groping the breasts of a local woman walking in a street in Taipa in the early hours of last Tuesday, PSP spokesperson Lam Keong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Lam, the suspect in his twenties surnamed Vergara works as a waiter in Macau.
When the woman in her twenties was walking in Rua do Minho – a street near the new Nova Grand residential estate – at around 3 a.m. last Tuesday, someone – Vergara – suddenly hugged her from behind and groped her breasts, Lam said, adding that the offender then ran away.
The woman reported the case to the police. She told the police she saw that the man who had groped her was wearing a red T-shirt and faded denim cut-off shorts. After scrutinising the police forces’ citywide CCTV camera system, PSP officers identified Vergara as the suspect, Lam said.
According to Lam, PSP officers arrested Vergara last Friday outside the Hipódromo Garden residential estate in Taipa where he lives. In the flat that Vergara rents, the officers found the clothing that he was wearing when he groped the woman, Lam said.
Under questioning, Vergara admitted to having groped the woman in the street. The police also found out that the Filipino committed the same kind of offence in Macau in 2016 when he also suddenly groped the breasts of a woman walking in a street, Lam said.
According to Lam, when asked by the police last Friday, Vergara admitted to having committed the same offence in 2016.
Lam said that Vergara has been transferred to the Public Prosecution Office (MP) for further questioning, facing a sexual harassment charge.
According to Article 164-A of the Macau Penal Code, a sexual harassment offender faces a prison term of up to one year. The non-consensual touching of another person’s body in a sexual way – either with any particular part of the offender’s body or with any object – is regarded as sexual harassment.
The sexual harassment article was added to the Penal Code in 2017 after the passage of a government-initiated amendment bill on sex crimes listed in the Penal Code by the Legislative Assembly.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows the clothing that the suspect was wearing when he groped a woman’s breasts in a street in Taipa last week.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police yesterday shows PSP officers escorting the sexual harassment suspect into a PSP car outside the Hipodromo Garden residential estate in Taipa last Friday.
