Former Hong Kong official convicted of taking cash for non-existent language courses
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 02 July, 2015, 12:41pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 02 July, 2015, 12:42pm
Thomas Chan [email protected]
Former assistant commissioner for labour Sam Chow was found guilty at Kowloon City Court. Photo: Thomas Chan
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.
This took into account the fact that the two centres had failed to pay rent for months and had not generated a profit for years. Chow had also failed to secure any potential investors.
Today, the magistrate ruled that he accepted Zau’s testimony that if he needed to set up a trust, he would have sought help from lawyers and accountants instead of Chow.
Lam said that Zau had insisted he had no interest in Chow’s businesses all along, and dodged Chow’s invitation for investment.
Lam said: “If Zau had real interest in the businesses, he would not have promised to invest only HK$2 million – which is just enough to cover the outstanding rents.”
In mitigation, Chow’s lawyer Alan Ho submitted to court several letters, including from lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan, former director of broadcasting Chu Pui-hing and former director of the Buildings Department Choi Yu-leuk.
Ho said Chow took early retirement in 2004 and set up the education centres in the hope of nurturing future language geniuses.
Lam ordered Chow to pay compensation to the two students today, and adjourned sentencing to July 16, pending a community services report.
