High Court Judge Suspended After Liaisons During Work Hours
A provincial high court judge has been suspended and is under investigation after a net user posted photos of him visiting hotel rooms with several women during work hours.
The pictures were uploaded on Saturday to Tianya, a popular Chinese internet forum, and they show security footage dated April 26 of the judge, Xiao Ming, and a woman checking in at a hotel reception desk, walking to a room, and leaving approximately 40 minutes later.
Other photos include text messages, supposedly between the judge and the woman. In one message she tells Xiao to not forget a condom. Another photo of the hotel’s registry shows that the judge had made 17 such reservations, dating from January 2014, and mostly on working days during office hours.
On Tuesday morning the High People’s Court of Hunan, located in provincial capital of Changsha in central China, posted on its Weibo microblog that it had started an investigation and suspended the judge.
China’s judges often complain of being under a lot of pressure and working long hours. Whether Xiao shares these concerns is as of yet unknown.
(Header image: Lorenzo Dominguez/Moment/VCG)