A former mortuary attendant of Haven of Hope Hospital (the Hospital) was today (Tuesday) sentenced at Kwun Tong Magistracy to four months' imprisonment for accepting bribes over the past 11 years from various funeral parlours as a reward for arranging for the removal of corpses.

D1, 59, had earlier pleaded guilty to six counts of public servant accepting advantages, contrary to Section 4 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.

He was also ordered to pay $9,000 in restitution to the Hospital Authority.

The court heard that at the time of offences, the defendant was employed as a mortuary attendant at the Hospital, which was managed by the Hospital Authority.

D1's duties included receiving corpses from wards, transporting and keeping corpses, arranging families of the deceased to identify, claiming and removing the dead bodies.

Between January 1998 and January 2009, D1 had accepted advantages, in the form of "red packets", from employees of various funeral parlours as a reward for arranging for the removal of corpses.

D1 had accepted "red packets" ranging from $10 to $100 for each corpse removed for the funeral parlours.

According to the register of the mortuary of the Hospital, D1 had handled about 180 corpses for those funeral parlours during the period.

The prosecution was today represented by Senior Public Prosecutor Richard Ma, assisted by ICAC officer Phoebe Saesam.