Prison sentences were meted out to two former cinema staff at San Po Kong Court today (Wednesday) for pocketing proceeds totalling about $130,000 from the sale of 3,600 stolen tickets.

To facilitate the fraud, the duo had conspired to pretend that the computerized ticketing system had broken down and issued tickets manually to customers.

Former deputy manager of Astor Classics Cinema (Astor) Kwan Chi-hang, 30, was sentenced to 21 weeks' imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, while and Ho Yiu-chung, 22, former usher of Astor, was jailed for 19 weeks.

The defendants earlier pleaded guilty before Magistrate Mr Ronald Cheung to a joint charge of conspiracy to defraud the Classics Cinema Limited (CCL), which owned the cinema, by selling stolen tickets to customers and pocketing the proceeds between April 1 and October 6, 1999.

The scam was uncovered last October during an ICAC investigation into a corruption complaint which alleged an usher of Astor of bribing his supervisor for conniving at the sale of fake tickets. The cinema has closed down.

The court heard that Ho, while employed by CCL, was required to sell tickets at Astor from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, and from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm, while the box office's supervisor and ticket seller had their meal breaks.

In April 1999, Kwan approached Ho and suggested that they could steal blank tickets from Astor and pocket the proceeds from selling them.

Kwan proposed that he would share 75 percent of the proceeds, while Ho would have the remaining 25 percent.

Ho agreed to the plot. Kwan then gave Ho 3,600 blank tickets.

Between April and October 1999, when Ho operated the box office everyday at the designated hours, he told customers that the computer was out of service and entered details on the blank tickets manually. He then shared the proceeds with Kwan.

It was estimated that the defendants had pocketed about $130,000 in total from the fraudulent scheme.

ICAC officer Kenny Tse appeared for the prosecution today.