Jacobs China technicians jailed for up to 2 years for faking test results for Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge concrete

Seven technicians given jail terms while six others receive either suspended sentences or community service

Prosecutors said defendants changed computer dates when compiling reports to give impression they conducted tests with certain time frame

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The multibillion-dollar Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 7:02pm, 11 Dec 2019Updated: 1:32pm, 12 Nov 2020

Seven technicians working for a Hong Kong government contractor were sentenced to up to two years in jail on Wednesday for falsifying safety test reports for a mega bridge that links the city to Macau and mainland China.

But the District Court handed down either suspended sentences or community service orders to six other co-defendants, after considering they had relatively little participation in the conspiracy related to the multibillion-dollar construction of the 55km (34-mile) Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.

The 13 defendants were the last group of laboratory workers from Jacobs China, which was responsible for testing the strength of concrete used in the crossing, to be sentenced over altering computer records and replacing genuine specimen cubes with fakes in compiling the test reports. Five other employees were previously sentenced to up to 32 months in jail following their guilty pleas.

Prosecutors said the case had forced the government to spend an extra HK$58 million (US$7.4 million) to redo the tests and pay government staff for overtime work.

District Judge Clement Lee Hing-nin accepted that 12, who pleaded not guilty to one joint charge of conspiracy to defraud, had been pressured by their supervisor to commit the crime to meet tight deadlines. He found that despite the serious nature of the offence, the case did not involve any monetary gain or give rise to substantial safety concerns.