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.