Maths lecturer offered HK$10,000 to give details of exam
A postgraduate student at City University was sentenced to six months' jail yesterday for offering a mathematics lecturer HK$10,000 in exchange for the questions and answers of an imminent final examination.
Chen Jing, 25, a student from Wuhan, Hubei province, pleaded guilty at Kowloon City Court yesterday to one count of offering an advantage to a public servant under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.
Magistrate Tong Man ordered the HK$10,000 bribe to be confiscated. The bribery attempt came to light when the associate professor reported the case to university management and then the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Mr Tong said that in view of the seriousness of the offence, an immediate custodial sentence had to be imposed on Chen.
Though the magistrate believed that the defendant was not familiar with the anti-bribery law in Hong Kong, he said that was not an excuse for the defendant to commit the offence.
Serving as prosecutor, ICAC officer Caroline Yu told the court the defendant came from Wuhan in September. She then enrolled in a course offered by the university's department of mathematics. A final examination was scheduled on December 16.