Top Court Clears Duo Over 'prison Visit Service'

The Court of Final Appeal has quashed the convictions of two people who were involved in offering "representative visiting services" to family and friends of people in custody.

The pair, Thomas Wan and Guan Qiaoyong, were part of a company that helped arrange visits to prisoners at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre who were awaiting trial.

They had been sentenced to community service in September 2013 after a court found them guilty of conspiracy to defraud officers of the Correctional Services Department by dishonestly and falsely representing that each of them was a friend of a prisoner there.

But a five-judge panel of the Court of Final Appeal overturned the duo's convictions on Monday.

It ruled that a wider definition should be given to the word “friends” to include people like the defendants.

The judgement said the most important purpose of any prison visit to the people behind bars is contact with persons outside the jail and the provision of moral and material support.

It added that prisoners are also entitled to "procure for themselves food and malt liquor, their own clothes and newspapers" under a "more liberal regime" – even if the visiting services were contracted directly by the prisoner himself.

The judges said, to that extent, the pair can properly be described from the point of view of the prison as his friends – where the definition of "friends" includes those requested to visit the prisoner and people by whom the person in custody is willing to be visited.

The court also said that the evidence of their case fell short of proving an element of dishonesty – which is fundamental to a conspiracy to defraud allegation.