Ex-police Officer Admits Swindling Three Colleagues

A former police officer has been jailed for six weeks for conning three of his colleagues into lending him more than HK$55,000 to pay his mother's non-existent medical bills.

A judge said former senior constable Lam Chung-man had not only abused the trust of his colleagues in the Sham Shui Po police division but also brought the police force into disrepute.

West Kowloon Magistracy heard that Lam, then a senior constable, had in May 2018 told the colleagues that he urgently needed to borrow money to pay medical bills his mother had run up on the mainland.

The colleagues subsequently made five transfers into his account.

However the court heard that it later emerged that Lam's mother had not left Hong Kong at all since 2009.

Questioned by investigators from the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Lam confessed that his mother had not received any such medical treatment.

Lam pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud. Passing sentence, Principal Magistrate Peter Law said Lam had abused his colleague's trust, and his actions had been bad for the reputation of the force as a whole.