Former Hong Kong official convicted of taking cash for non-existent language courses

A former Hong Kong government official who ran an education business after retirement has been found guilty of accepting tuition fees despite knowing he could not deliver language courses on their designated dates.

Delivering his verdict, Kowloon City Deputy Magistrate Lam Tsz-kan dismissed former assistant commissioner for labour Sam Chow Tung-shan’s arguments that he believed businessman Zau Shou-chung would set up a HK$2 million trust to help the operation of his failed Le Beaumont Language Centre.

The 70-year-old was convicted of accepting fees of about HK$9,000 from two students but failing to offer them the English, Putonghua and Spanish courses they enrolled in.

The students paid the money just weeks before two centres, one in Tsim Sha Tsui and another in Causeway Bay, closed down – which, according to Chow’s evidence, was due to Zau’s withdrawal of HK$2 million in capital.

Chow had earlier denied two counts of wrongly accepting payments from a consumer for a product under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.

The prosecution alleged that when the centres accepted payment from the two students, Chow had reasonable grounds to believe that he would not be able provide the courses.