A man, charged by the ICAC, was today (Wednesday) sentenced to one year's imprisonment at Kowloon City Magistracy for deceiving gold ornaments, worth about $40,000, from a woman by posing as a policeman.

Wellsy Pun Sui-fat, 46, unemployed, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Mr Ernest Lin Kam-hung to one count of obtaining property by deception.

The case arose from a corruption complaint. Subsequent ICAC enquiries revealed the deception offence.

The court heard that in around 2000, the defendant falsely represented to a woman and her daughter that he was a police officer attached to the Regional Crime Unit of Kowloon West. He had on occasions been seen carrying a gun-like object on his waist. B ut in fact, the defendant was unemployed and was never a police officer.

The defendant then became the boyfriend of the woman's daughter, and later moved in to live with them.

Since March 2001, the defendant had obtained a number of loans from the woman.

In mid 2002, the defendant falsely represented to the woman that he would soon receive a retirement pension from the Police, thus misleading her into believing that he would be able to repay the debts.

In October 2002, the defendant asked a friend to issue him with a cheque for $942,600, knowing that the cheque would be dishonoured due to insufficient funds.

The defendant then deposited the cheque into his bank account. With a false deposit entry in his savings passbook, he requested a loan from the woman by falsely representing that he had received the retirement pension of $942,600 from the Police.

With the false representation, the woman was misled into giving the defendant some gold ornaments, worth $30,000 to $40,000, for sale and the defendant took the proceeds as a loan.

The court heard that between March 2001 and October 2004, the defendant had borrowed a total of $314,900 to $324,900 from the woman. So far, the defendant had repaid the woman $4,000.

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Paul Lau.