The computer technician accused of stealing digital images showing singer-actor Edison Chen Koon-hei with a string of female stars downloaded software to erase files stored on his home computer one day after the pictures surfaced on the Web, a court was told.
Fragments of photos were retrieved from Sze Ho-chun's home computer after police took it away for examination following a search on February 2 last year, police officer Ho Ming-yin said on the fourth day of Sze's trial.
The 24-year-old has pleaded not guilty to three counts of obtaining access to a computer with a view to making a dishonest gain between January and June 2006.
Sze worked for computer shop Elite Multimedia in Central, where Chen had taken his laptop for repair.
Ms Ho, from the technology crime division of the commercial crime bureau, said Sze had googled 'securedel' and 'secure delete' on January 28 last year. Secure Delete is a program used to delete files inside a computer, she said. Sze installed the programme at 6.08pm that day and it was last used at 6.23pm. He uninstalled it at 6.28pm, Ms Ho said.
The 11 photo fragments retrieved from Sze's computer were believed to be of the same images stored on a compact disc Sze allegedly burned and gave to a female client while he was repairing Chen's laptop in 2006, Ms Ho said.
When cross-examined by Sze's barrister, Kelvin Lai Kin-wah, Ms Ho said it was possible the fragments were not from the same images as those on the compact disc.