Thunderroad

What does "bound over" mean? Prison or probation? The following paragraph from The Standard article makes it sound like not so serious a penalty, but perhaps the article just got garbled or I'm misunderstanding it:


"The magistrate, who said he would not have accepted the prosecution's application for a binding over order if the case were more serious, told Chin: "You should know airline staff are under pressure from work but you let off your emotions on them. Frontline staff should be protected by law." Lin was also concerned about the son's use of foul language in front of Chin."

Guy Betsy

People think that just because they are working at the counter/gate that the staff are treated as lower class citizens. It is this very attitude that they think that by shouting and hurling abuse that they are more superior to them.

Would this have happened if it occurred in the US, UK, EU, Australia?

Perhaps its about time that asian airports started taking the western approach... ie "Shout at me and we will see that you are removed from the airport and you will no longer be allowed to fly with us ever again"

cxfan1960

* Taser
* Handcuff
* Prosecute as terrorist
* Put on the no-fly list

I think there is an ordinance in HK against such behaviour (e.g., using foul language) in the airport, MTR, etc.

As far I am concerned, the father's career is now limited, and the son may not even have a career. This may be their biggest punishment for their behaviour.

hau cheng

Welcome to HK.

percysmith

Binding Over - More like probation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_over

I first read the penalty as Bending Over, and intrigued that HK magistrates can impose such daunting penalties. A newly-admitted learned friend of mine had a laugh as well, then put me straight.

percysmith

We might be practicing integration with Mainland/PRD - violence in the airport against staff or fellow passengers results in absolutely nothing.

kaka

1 reason to flee HK. at least in the UK when that happens the media wil taunt the police for 2 months for not doing anything. and will bring it up every now and then. or simply electrocute that guy (like in YVR )

in HK it's more like forget forgot forgotten. which sucks. way to go sucking china's balls... sooner or later you can bribe staff to get on the plane (why didnt they even think of that, pay 100RMB and try get their way through)

thinking about it, bending over would truly be a good way to punish them... :P he got lucky not having to "suffer" under custody(like nicolas tse). if i were the judge(that's a big if, but whatever, he did hit someone under camra) i would have done so in order to have him semi-bentover.

dietevil

A binding over is a way for a Court in HK (and in some other common law systems) to deal with less serious cases so that the person involved does not have a criminal record, is not found "guilty" or "not guilty" of anything, but still must promise to keep the peace.

It is wholly different from probation because probation is a sentence following conviction.

percysmith

True, no conviction.

But as cxfan1960 says, the biggest part of the punishment is getting your name in the paper. In the HKMA, probably enough to stop any future career advancement there.

Lucky for him there's a good compliance market out there. And HK banks tolerate this kind of abuse to staff.

global happy traveller

unfortunately customer service oriented organizations focus too much on addressing the customer's needs and hoping for a move on. very sad that CX management failed to look after the employee after that incident. That employee would definitely have benefited from some 1:1 time with their supervisor, EAP (Employee Assistance Program) or counseling

In North America: Supervisor --> Police --> Incident Report (simple)

There is a difference between addressing a heated issue and being abusive!

kaka

did amina screw up the binding over part?

Cathay Boy

It all comes down to whether you will get what you want or not. If more people are seeing results because of yelling, and management's bending over backwards to people who yell, then of course more and more people will yell.

In the US you yell and airport police will come and escort you to their offices, and make a minor charge (that usually gets drop, but the message is sent.) Now, on a side note sometimes I wish someone yell at US gate agents for their crappy attitude, but I can only wish....

But I am not surprised how the whole situation is handled. Usually East Asians seems to bite on the "do you know who I am" argument....

percysmith

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11))

Amina got a probationary conviction http://www.webb-site.com/articles/slapper.asp which she then broke the terms of. Binding over is not a conviction.