Magistrate accuses ex-legal clerk
A former solicitor's clerk approached a magistrate during a lunch break and hinted that a relative facing charges of vote-planting should be given a lenient sentence, it was alleged yesterday.
Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Kelvin Zervos told the District Court that Kwok Wing-yip had made the suggestion to Western Court magistrate Symon Wong Yu-wing in a restaurant on September 24 last year. Kwok, 29, has denied one count of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.
Mr Wong told the court yesterday he was waiting to pay for his lunch bill when Kwok asked him if anyone convicted of vote-planting would go to prison.
Mr Wong said he told Kwok: 'Yes, definitely, even after a guilty plea.' Mr Wong said Kwok then told him that a relative of his was involved in a vote-rigging case and asked if it was possible she could avoid prison.
The magistrate said he sensed something 'wrong' about the conversation as he was in the middle of a case concerning vote-planting.
The defendant was former film star and Southern District councillor Lee Pui-ying, 60, also known as Lee Hung.
Mr Wong said he asked Kwok if he was referring to that case and Kwok answered 'yes'.
The magistrate said he then immediately told Kwok they could not talk about the case anymore as it was inappropriate. He also warned that it was dangerous for Kwok to have done so.
Mr Wong said Kwok continued, telling him Lee Pui-ying was his mother's half-sister.
'[Kwok] said: 'I have no other choice. She doesn't want to end up with the situation like Sister Pak and can't have a good living at an old age',' Mr Wong said.
The magistrate said he inferred from Kwok's conversation that the 'Sister Pak' he was referring to was socialite Pamela Pak Wan-kam, who was jailed for three months for tax evasion last year.
Mr Wong said that after he returned to his chamber in Western Court after lunch, he reported the matter to Chief Magistrate Patrick Li Hon-leung.
The magistrate said he mentioned the incident in open court at the next hearing of Lee Pui-ying's case on October 3 last year.
Lee Pui-ying was later jailed for three months after she was convicted of vote-planting in 1999.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Cheng Huan, SC, Mr Wong said he had known Kwok since 1994 and had twice gone to nightclubs in Macau with him, as well as playing mahjong with him.
Mr Wong said he accepted Kwok's social invitations because he did not want to hurt his feelings.
But he denied Mr Cheng's suggestion that he had asked Kwok to help recover outstanding legal fees that were still owing to him after he completed a case as a barrister.
Mr Wong said he only told Kwok that he had lodged a complaint with the Law Society in March last year against the solicitor's firm Ivan Tang & Co over the $500,000 debt.
Judge Judianna Barnes Wai-ling ruled that Kwok had a case to answer and the trial continues today.
