Questions raised over paid prison visits case

Questions have been raised after two magistrates handled different defendants in the same case, with the mastermind of the illegal jail-visit scheme being given a community service order while those who worked for him were jailed for two months.

Veteran criminal lawyer Stephen Hung Wan-shun said that where there were co-accused, some of whom pleaded guilty and the others not guilty, the usual practice was to adjourn sentencing of the former until after the trial of the latter.

"After listening to all the evidence, a magistrate will have a better understanding of all the evidence in the trial," he said. "This can avoid inconsistency in sentencing."

In Kwun Tong Court yesterday, mastermind Thomas Wan, a former auxiliary policeman, and five people who worked for him were ordered by Deputy Magistrate Kennis Tai Chiu-ki to perform community service of 100 to 240 hours. They had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to defraud prison officers.

Earlier, Principal Magistrate Ernest Lin Kam-hung imposed two-month jail terms on three other employees, all housewives, who pleaded guilty.

The court heard that Wan's company, IPS-Care, hired people to pose as friends of inmates to visit them for HK$120 a time if they passed on messages, food and daily necessities.

Sentencing the six, Tai said the penalties reflected the fact the case did not involve triad members and the firm had refused to pass messages that would pervert the course of justice.

"Otherwise, the court would have adopted a more severe approach to maintain the effectiveness of the Correctional Services Department's measures to avoid other people using inappropriate ways to contact inmates," he said.

The defendants were arrested after four undercover operations in November and December 2011 when officers posed as clients.

Hung said there might have been some special reasons for Lin to pass sentence at an early stage.

In the Court of First Instance in July, since-retired judge Michael Stuart-Moore said that in dealing with mixed pleas, the judge should postpone the sentencing of a person who had pleaded guilty until the other had been tried and then deal with all the defendants together.

"The desirability of co- accused being sentenced on one occasion by the same judge has frequently been stressed," he said. "Separate sentencing may lead to unacceptable disparity in the ways they are respectively treated.

"Also, the judge will hear, during the course of the trial of the accused pleading not guilty, evidence indicating the gravity of the offence and the extent of each of the accused's role in it, which information may ultimately assist him in sentencing the one pleading guilty."

Outside court yesterday, the convicted six refused to indicate whether they would appeal.

A Correctional Services Department spokesman said it would review its procedures so as to block illegal jail visits.