The first incident happened on a train going from Xilang Station to Guangzhou East Railway Station at 8:47 a.m. Shortly after departing Gongyuanqian Station, the train was halted for seven minutes, as if anybody needed the queues at upcoming stations to get any longer.

According to one witness, the delay lasted for 14 minutes.

Then at 5:52 in the afternoon, a train going the other direction was delayed for nine minutes after a similar malfunction near Yangsuan Station.

Authorities have apologized for the inconvenience caused by the delays and warned passengers to make sure all of their luggage is fully inside the train when the doors close.

Moreover, if a passenger’s luggage or clothes do get caught in the closing doors, they should not try to pull it out themselves but wait until the doors open at the next station.

However, his sentence is just one year.

Last year, on the evening of May 24, A Min, a white collar worker, got on the subway at Yangsuan Station on Line 5 where she met A Bin for the first time. They started chatting and she asked him whether he would like to have dinner with her after she got off at the terminus, Wenchong.

Even though he was supposed to get off at Wencun, he agreed, and she suggested that they have drinks while eating to assuage her bad mood. When they got to A Bin’s intended stop, she reminded him to get off as, she said, she was only semi serious about the dinner invitation, but in the end, allowed him to come along.

On arriving at the terminus, he took her to a food stall where they had supper and 11 bottles of beer. He said he did not force her to drink. At 1 a.m. when he was starting to doze off, he said he told her to stop drinking, but A Min insisted on competing with him, and they continued until 2:20 a.m.

After paying the bill, A Bin then offered to take her to her home in Huangpu District.

Both parties agree that the above is all true. Here is where it gets tricky.

A Bin insists that they had a spontaneous one night stand and forgot to use a condom. A Min says she called her ex-boyfriend, who she is still close to, to come and protect her. She says she expressly turned down A Bin’s offer of sex, but he subdued her before raping her.

The next morning A Min asked him if he had used a condom. He said yes but when she went to the trash can to see if any condom had been disposed of, he confessed that he had lied. She then dialled 110 to report him for raping her and he tried to drag the phone off her, asking her why she was acting so differently to the “cute” girl he had met the night before.

A Bin later confessed that he had not asked for consent, but he assumed that A Min wanted to have sex with him. Accounts differ as to what state of consciousness A Min was in when they had sex.

Despite the seriousness of the conviction, Huangpu District Court has given A Bin a lenient sentence because it is his first criminal offense and the various shades of grey involved in the case.

A Bin confessed that he thinks one night stands are “immoral,” but continues to insist that he is not a rapist.

Last year saw a high profile case in which police ruled out the possibility of rape on the grounds that the alleged rapist had been wearing a condom. This caused much outrage at the time.