Disgraceful Conduct
This sort of publicity is something Wing Chun can do without!
No master beats up a defenceless woman!
No man does that!
Kung fu master found guilty of beating girlfriend
Patsy Moy
Friday, November 20, 2009
Renowned kung fu master Leung Ting was sentenced yesterday to two months in jail for attacking his girlfriend.
Kowloon City deputy magistrate Ko Wai-hung released Leung, 62, on HK$50,000 bail pending appeal. Following the sentencing, Leung's former girlfriend and victim Rita Lip Sik-ying, who described the assault as "disgraceful," said she would not have called police if she had not been beaten so severely.
Speaking to Sing Tao Daily, sister paper of The Standard, Lip, 45, described Leung as a womanizer who had many girlfriends.
Nevertheless, she saw him as an attractive man ever since meeting him through a friend about five years ago. "He is a kung fu master but is also knowledgeable about everything," said Lip, adding she has not been in touch with Leung since the March assault. "I have mixed feelings about the sentence, considering we had been together for a few years."
After hearing Ko's guilty verdict, Leung stood up twice in the dock and shouted that the court did not have the facts and a full picture of the incident.
Leung, the Wing Tsun founder, had denied one count of assault causing actual bodily harm.
In his ruling, Ko admitted the case involved a "one-against-one situation, with no independent witness."
But he said Lip was honest and did not exaggerate her case against Leung.
Neither did Ko believe Leung beat Lip out of self-defense. He said being found guilty would seriously hurt Leung's career.
Lip testified that Leung banged her head against the floor, kicked her in the stomach and boxed her ears during a dispute concerning one of his former wives.
But Leung, in refuting the claims, said Lip became upset when he did not give her the HK$50,000 she wanted for an abortion to be performed in Singapore.
Leung said Lip became hysterical and tried to jump from a window, and that he tried to save her by grabbing her arm and neck.
He also claimed Lip began hitting her head on the floor and banged on his neighbors' doors, shouting: "Leung Ting is hitting a woman."
A medical report on Lip indicated tenderness to her neck, redness to her face, bleeding to the eyes, and bruises.
Leung claims to be the last closed door disciple of the late Yip Man Yip though some of Yip Man's students have disputed whether he ever even studied with Yip. Thus, in addition to disputes about Leung's seniority (among Yip's students), there is also some question about his actual lineage.
This controversy was further fueled in part by allegations that a photo that Leung has presented showing him with Yip Man was doctored or altered from a photograph that show Yip Man with the chief editor of the New Martial Hero magazine. Leung, in turn, has denied the head change. Other photo evidence shows Leung at Yip Man's funeral with an armband that apparently denotes a rank other than first generation (i.e., an armband that indicates that Leung was considered to be a grand student of Yip Man's rather than a direct student.).