A Chinese government official has been sacked after photos and vid clips of him drunkenly trying to force an 11-year-old girl into the men's toilet of a Shenzhen seafood restaurant surfaced on the internet, Reuters reports.

Lin Jiaxiang, former Communist Party chief and deputy director of the Shenzhen Maritime Safety Administration, was quickly given his marching orders by the Ministry of Transport, an example of the government's increasingly swift reaction to official misbehaviour in an attempt to "try and dampen widespread disgust over corruption and officials' abuse of power".

According to other news agencies, Lin boasted to the parents of his intended victim that he was "a high official from Beijing" and offered them money by way of appeasement. The Ministry of Transport will further probe the matter before deciding if additional punishment is in order. ®

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