A man accused of practising martial arts in a town centre told a court he did not mean to frighten or alarm anyone.

Cheong Wong was arrested in Clacton after police received reports of a man brandishing a sword in the Pier Avenue area known as Christmas Tree Island.

It turned out to be a metal bar.

Mr Wong, 31, appeared before magistrates in Harwich yesterday, charged with threatening behaviour following the incident on May 8 last year.

He denied the charge and he was cleared by magistrates after telling the court, through an interpreter, he had been bored while waiting for a bus and had decided to do some exercise.

The court was shown CCTV video footage which showed Mr Wong practising what he said were similar to kung-fu moves, but he denied holding any kind of weapon, saying it was a metal bar he had found and was carrying in his back pack.

Sgt Andrew Smith told the court he had watched Mr Wong on CCTV after being alerted by camera operators.

"It looked like he was doing tai-chi. He appeared to be practising moves, waving what I believed to be a sword around his head and swishing it in an arc around his body.

"His movements were quite slow and controlled."

Sgt Smith said he later discovered the weapon was not a sword, but a metal carpet strip or carpet gripper.

Mr Wong told the court he had found the carpet strip in a bin and had taken it to mend a door at the hotel in Colchester where he was staying at the time.

Mr Wong, now living in Basildon, said: "I was doing what you people call kung-fu, but to me that is exercise. I was exercising and not harming anybody."

Published Friday, January 17, 2003

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