Man's cyber rape threat 'just a joke'

A man who sent obscene photographs to a former schoolmate's computer and threatened to rape her in an e-mail message claimed he did it for fun, a court heard yesterday.

Ko Kam-fai, 23, an apprentice construction worker, has pleaded guilty to eight counts of criminal damage and two of criminal intimidation.

The District Court heard Ko downloaded a hacking program called Netbus from the Internet in 1998 while he was unemployed. He obtained the e-mail address of Hung Ma Lai, 24, a former school friend, in September that year. At the time, Ms Hung was a University of Hong Kong student.

Prosecutor Richard Turnbull said Ko started 'cyber-stalking' Ms Hung soon after obtaining her e-mail address. In January 1999 he found another victim, Chan Chung Yan, 22. She was also a University of Hong Kong student. He came across her e-mail address by chance when he altered part of Ms Hung's e-mail address.

Ko identified himself as 'Superhacker'. The salacious e-mails included stories about sex crimes and obscene pictures, the court heard.

In March 1999, Ms Hung suspected someone had hacked into her e-mail account and later discovered her account was being controlled by an unknown person. She changed her account information and password.

But she received another seven e-mails in mid-April - one with Chinese characters that asked: 'Don't you believe that I will go to your hall to rape you?' This was accompanied by a picture of a woman having sex.