Discharge without conviction follows brothel Taser event

NO CONVICTION: Weiquan Yang, owner of the Scarlet Lounge brothel, pointed a Taser at a man who had been refused entry. PHOTO/FILE

A Whangarei brothel owner who pointed a Taser at a man to "protect" his working girls has been discharged without conviction after a judge said the consequences of a conviction would far outweigh the gravity of the offence.

Weiquan Yang, 43, owner of Scarlet Lounge brothel, appeared for sentencing in Whangarei District Court this week after earlier pleading guilty to a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm (the Taser).

Yang was at the brothel, on Clyde St, Whangarei, in the early hours of April 11, this year, when six men came in, one of whom was a regular.

The regular was allowed in, but the other five were asked to leave and Yang followed them down the stairs and outside.

An altercation took place and Yang brought out a Taser shaped like a torch and pointed it towards the face of one of the men and activated it so that an electric arc appeared, but the man was not actually Tasered.

The Taser needed to make contact with a person to be effective, rather than sending out barbs that hit the person, as do police-issue Tasers.

Judge John McDonald said that under the Prostitution Reform Act a conviction under the Arms Act would see Yang automatically banned from operating the brothel. And while there was a process to apply for a waiver, that would take at least five weeks. Judge McDonald said that would impact on the livelihoods of the brothel workers and Yang also had to support his parents in Auckland, with his mother seriously ill.

Judge McDonald said the Taser was low-powered compared with police-issue Tasers and police who had tried Yang's Taser said it hurt as much as the police Taser, but did not have the same debilitating effects.

He said that under the act, if Yang had presented a machete to the men and been convicted of that he would not get the automatic ban.

Yang foolishly followed the men down the stairs and had the mistaken belief that he could have the Taser to protect his workers, Judge McDonald said.

Yang had been the one to phone the police that morning. "In my view, the offending is at the very low end of the scale for this type of offence," Judge McDonald said.

As a first offender, and given the consequences of a conviction on Yang, his parents and workers, a discharge without conviction was appropriate. He ordered Yang to pay $750 to Women's Refuge.