A former senior legal clerk of a solicitors firm was sentenced to 240 hours of community service at District Court today (Wednesday) for destroying documents allegedly instrumental to the arrangement of bogus marriages for some Mainlanders.

Chun Tak-wah, 34, formerly employed by Alfred Lau & Co, earlier pleaded guilty to one count of perverting the course of public justice.

Judge Pang ordered the remaining count of conspiracy to defraud to be left on court file.

The court heard that between 1995 and 1996, Chan Pun-chung, a then marine police constable, approached Chun's subordinate Lam Koon-shing for processing some Declarations of Marital Status.

After Lam resigned in early 1997, Chun processed the declarations for Chan personally on about 10 occasions.

These declarations were then submitted to China Legal Service (HK) Ltd, a China semi-official organisation, falsely purporting that the declarants intended to marry the Mainlanders named in the declarations.

Chan was arrested by the ICAC on September 24, 1997 for allegedly accepting advantages to arrange bogus marriages between local residents and Mainlanders and to help illegal immigrants overstay in Hong Kong.

Between late 1997 and early 1998, Chan informed Chun that he was under investigation by the ICAC and asked Chun to get rid of all related documents.

Chun agreed to do so for fear that he himself would get involved in the ICAC investigation.

The court learnt that without the consent of the lawyer, Chun destroyed the relevant papers.

Lam, 25, former legal clerk, was also charged by the ICAC with allegedly conspiring with Chan to accept $100 to several hundred dollars for expediting the notarising of the declarations brought in by Chan.

Lam pleaded not guilty to the offence, and is due to appear in Eastern Court on October 13 this year for trial.

The prosecution was today represented by Steve Chui on a fiat, assisted by ICAC officer Kitty Lau.