A former executive director of an engineering company was sentenced to 39 months’ imprisonment at District Court today (Tuesday) for deceiving the company of about $210,000 by inflating the purchase price of goods.

Judge Day said an immediate custodial sentence was imposed since the offences committed by the defendant were serious and constituted a breach of trust.

While taking into account the defendant's good character, the judge added that the sentence conveyed a message that corruption must be dealt with seriously.

Lok Wai-keung, 36, formerly employed by Tak Cheong (Yau Kee) Engineering Limited (Tak Cheong), was also ordered to pay $210,000 in restitution.

Lok was found guilty of three offences under Section 9(3) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance and one conspiracy offence contrary to Section 159A of the Crimes Ordinance and Section 19(1)(a) of the Theft Ordinance.

The court heard that between January 2 and April 18, 1997, Lok had conspired with Sham King-cheung to falsify six invoices of Hung Yue Machinery Factory (Hung Yue), which showed purchase prices of steel thread rods sold to Tak Cheong of inflated amount of $202,152.40.

Sham was the proprietor of Hung Yue, a company which made and supplied screws and other metal objects.

Sham gave the inflated amount of money to Lok after receiving payments from Tak Cheong.

Lok had also used false vouchers to make three petty cash claims of $11,000 in total between July 4, 1997 and July 19, 1998.

The prosecution was today represented by Paul Leung on a fiat, assisted by ICAC officer Patty Wu.