bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

SOLICITOR Oscar Lai Ka-to, who bribed corrupt former government lawyer Warwick Reid, can expect to be released from prison in about eight months.

  His jail sentence was reduced from seven to five years yesterday.

  The Court of Appeal, while holding that an illicit relationship between a prosecuting counsel and the defence team was of extreme gravity, decided to cut the penalty because it was Lai's first offence.

  Lai, 59, was found guilty by a jury in June 1992 of five offences of offering a bribe to Reid to fix prosecutions for his clients, but had four convictions quashed on appeal on Tuesday.

   Reducing his sentence, the Appeal Court, comprising Vice-President Mr Justice Power, Mr Justice Mortimer and Mr Justice Sears, held that Lai had engaged in misconduct of the most serious kind which warranted a substantial sentence.

   The court would be failing in its duty if it took any other view, said Mr Justice Power, delivering judgment.

 He noted that the seven-year term had been for five offences, but said the court took the view that this overall sentence was considerably lenient.

     But bearing in mind that it was his first offence, the court would allow the appeal against the sentence.

   It reduced the jail term to one of five years for the remaining offence of offering a bribe to Reid in relation to the prosecution of Ronald Li Fook-shiu, former chairman of the stock exchange.

   Lai had been in custody for about 30 months before he was granted bail pending appeal and, with the normal one-third remission for good behaviour, he can be expect to be released in about eight months.

  Asking the court to reduce the sentence, Lai's counsel Martin Lee, QC, submitted that his client had become involved only because he was approached by a friend, solicitor Alfred Li, son of Ronald Li, who complained to him that a lawyer was asking $100 million to handle his father's case.

  According to the evidence, said counsel, Lai's offer appeared to have been just to break the ice, to sound out whether Reid would ''play ball''.

   He said he had no quarrel with an overall sentence of seven years for five bribery offences, which, according to the trial judge, was a penalty to reflect the ''total criminality''.

   However, four convictions had been quashed, and he invited the court to look at the sentence afresh.

  He pointed out that seven years was the maximum sentence for the charge and it should be reserved for the most serious offence. To impose such a sentence on Lai would be wrong in principle.

  Lai's life was now ruined. He had lost his profession and his reputation at the age of 59.

   Crown counsel Adrian Huggins, QC, in his written submission, said Lai, as a solicitor, with Eddie Soh Chee-kong as a counsel and Reid as prosecutor in the stock-exchange case, had stood to gain substantial money if the ''big game'' paid off.

   The trial judge had been correct in taking the view that the offence was grave and one which not only ''tarnished an honourable profession'', but also ''struck a blow at the integrity of the law-enforcement system and the due process of law''.

   ''Put more bluntly the courts were being treated by these lawyers like a casino,'' he said.

   He said the offence struck at the root of the administration of justice and was much more serious than corruption in the commercial sector or other branches of the civil service.

  Soh, 52, who was convicted of seven bribery offences, had abandoned his appeal against conviction and sentence but the Crown is seeking to increase his seven-year jail term.

  The hearing of the review was fixed for Wednesday.

   A third man, businessman Lee Hoi-kwong, who had been found guilty of a single bribery count, succeeded in his appeal against conviction and his seven-year jail sentence was set aside.



Oscar Lai could be released in months