A Police Constable was today (Monday) sentenced to six months' imprisonment at Eastern Court for "hacking" into the computer systems of the Police and the Transport Department.

Ho Pak-sang, 39, pleaded guilty to six counts of obtaining access to a computer with a view to dishonest gain for himself or another, while the court ordered the remaining 11 similar counts to be left on file.

Magistrate Mr Anthony Yuen said an immediate custodial sentence was imposed as it was a serious offence for a law enforcement officer to dishonestly access the government computer systems.

The court heard that when the offences were committed, Ho was posted to the Criminal Intelligence Bureau (CIB).

Ho was authorised to access various computer information systems, including the Criminal Intelligence Computer System of the Police and the Vehicle and Driver Licensing Integrated Data System of the Transport Department, for conducting research on organis ed crime syndicates.

Between November 11 and 19 last year, Ho had on six occasions conducted checks and obtained restricted information from the two computer systems to help a woman who was then his girlfriend confirm if her former husband owned any vehicle.

Such information included stop and search records, particulars of individuals and specifications of vehicles.

The defendant also obtained the address of her former husband and accompanied her to the address.

Ho further conducted unauthorised checks to obtain personal information on another woman and details of vehicles she owned.

CIB had confirmed that the defendant was not carrying out his official duty when conducting the checks on the persons and vehicles involved, since they were not subjects of any investigation of CIB at the time.

The prosecution was today represented by Government Counsel Marco Lee, assisted by ICAC officer Simon Chow.