B.C. masseur appeals convictions for sexually assaulting female clients

The B.C. Court of Appeal and B.C. Supreme Court is pictured in Vancouver on Tuesday, May 25, 2021.

A masseur's appeal of three convictions for sexually assaulting female clients has been partially successful – with one of the guilty verdicts being set aside by B.C.'s Court of Appeal.

The charges against Rong Xian Li date back to 2017 when he was working at the Iris Day Spa in Surrey. He was the subject of a public warning and appeal for information from the Mounties in 2018, and one of the three complainants came forward after seeing reports about this warning, according to court documents. 

Li represented himself at a judge-alone trial in 2020, where he was ultimately found guilty on all three counts. The province's highest court ruled on his appeal last week. 

"Each complainant testified that the appellant touched, massaged, or squeezed their breasts in the course of the massages. They did not consent to this touching," the appeal court ruling says, summarizing the allegations that gave rise to the charges.

"The trial judge found that the complainants were each credible and reliable in their evidence of the sexual touching, and in identifying the appellant as the perpetrator," the decision continues.

Identity was a key issue at the trial because Li's defense was that he had never met, or massaged any of the women and that all three were lying. In addition to each woman identifying Li as the perpetrator, the Crown submitted supporting evidence showing that the women had visited the spa on the dates of the assaults and that Li was working at those times.

"The trial judge found that the appellant’s bare denial of having provided massages to any of the complainants, combined with his insistence that every other witness was lying and trying to frame him, to be unbelievable and inconsistent with evidence adduced at trial," the appeal court's decision reads.

In two cases business records such as appointment logs, were entered into evidence showing that the victims had appointments scheduled with Li, according to the appeal court's ruling.

In a third, the judge relied on the woman's testimony that she had verified the date and time of her appointment by checking her bank records for proof of payment.

"While the records themselves may have been admissible as business records, the Crown did not tender the records in evidence," the decision says.

Absent the records themselves, the woman's testimony about their contents was "inadmissible hearsay evidence." Relying on that evidence to find Li guilty was, the appeal court ruled, a significant legal error.

The conviction on that count was overturned, and a new trial ordered. The court dismissed Li's appeals of the other two convictions, finding no legal grounds to set them aside.

Li was sentenced to six months less a day in jail for each count of sexual assault, to be served concurrently, according to an emailed statement from a spokesperson for the B.C. Prosecution Service.

The Crown has not yet decided if Li will face another trial.

A spokesperson for the College of Massage Therapists of British Columbia has confirmed Li is not and has never been a member.