He said he must give the benefit of doubt to the defendants -- publisher Easy
Finder, chief editor Yuen Choi-yuk and the Paramount Printing Company. He
therefore acquitted them.
All three parties had earlier pleaded not guilty to publishing child
pornography without lawful excuse.
The defendants were also awarded costs after government prosecutor Agnes Chan
Wing-han agreed to be billed.
Ms Chan said the Department of Justice would have to study the judgment before
deciding whether to proceed with an appeal.
The magistrate noted that he did not see anything sexual in the process of
taking the pictures or that the person involved in the article had any sexual
intention.
He described the choice of skimpy clothes "as a matter of taste and fashion
sense", but he did question the motive of deliberately spraying the girl's
T-shirt to make it wet.
He said it was a matter of editorial judgment whether there was a better way to
represent the singer.
"There is no doubt that it raises a few eyebrows and ethical debate," Mr Lam
said, adding that these issues were still debatable.
The director of Against Child Abuse, Priscilla Lui Tsang Sun-kai, criticised
the law, saying the scope of pornographic depiction under the Protection of
Child Pornography Ordinance was too narrow.
Under the law, offenders must be found guilty if they have depicted an
underaged person engaging in explicit sexual conduct or depicted, in a sexual
manner or context, the genitals or anal region of a person or the breast of a
female.
Ms Lui suggested that if the material involved children, with an underlining
inference or implication of sexual assault, it should amount to a criminal
offence.
Leung Tin-wai, head of the journalism department at Shue Yan College, warned
that editors should exercise better editorial judgment.
The veteran journalist, who has previously held top editorial positions at Next
Magazine, also questioned whether it was necessary to create the wet T-shirt
look to depict sexiness.
South China Morning Post
