Hong Kong student sentenced to 8 weeks in jail for making fake withdrawal applications in organ donation system
- Wong Tsz-shing made false withdrawal applications amid wave of requests to city’s organ donation system after cross-border matching policy announced last year
- He has been handed an eight-week jail sentence, but is on bail pending an appeal against sentence
Eastern Court Magistrate Stephanie Tsui May-har on Wednesday rejected a suspended sentence for 20-year-old Wong Tsz-shing, who in mitigation said he was simply “messing around” by inputting the personal details of donors without their consent.
He was released on bail, pending an appeal against the sentence.
The University of Hong Kong student earlier pleaded guilty to one count of criminal damage and had been remanded for two weeks.
Tsui said his actions had “severely undermined the public interest” even though the Department of Health did not process the invalid applications submitted on May 23 of last year.
“The real victim here is the patient in need of [an organ transplant]. The Centralised Organ Donation Register is a vital system and it is unacceptable that [the defendant] wanted to mess with it,” she said.