Two restaurant shareholders who offered protection money to a police sergeant in an attempt to avoid triad harassment were jailed for 10 months yesterday.
Passing sentence in the District Court, Deputy Judge Joseph Yau Chi-lap said Hong Kong's 'hard-earned reputation' of being one of 'the most corruption-free societies' in the world must not be ruined.
Deputy Judge Yau accepted Yuen Lam, 37, and Wong Kwok-hing, 39, who both pleaded guilty to a joint charge of conspiracy to offer advantages to a public servant, had been running a respectable business and their offence was not the most serious of its kind.
'However, bear in mind that Hong Kong fought against corruption for almost 30 years before it became one of the most corruption-free societies in the world,' he said. 'Corruption can never be eradicated when there are still people willing to offer bribes.'
The pair admitted on Friday they had given the sergeant about $141,000 between August 1996 and March last year as they believed he would help if triads caused problems for their Ichimoto Japanese Restaurant in Hunghom.
They paid $5,000 monthly to the officer at the beginning but the amount fell to $3,000 since February 1997 due to poor business, the court heard. It dropped again in December 1998 to $2,000.