Forged reference letter case ends in community service
SingTao · 2 SOURCESabout 1 hour ago8 MIN
Summary
A 31-year-old mainland Chinese woman was sentenced at Fanling Magistrates’ Courts on Monday to 160 hours of community service after admitting she obtained admission-related education services from the Education University of Hong Kong by deception. The court heard she falsely claimed that a former associate professor, Ho Wai-yip, had recommended her for a doctoral programme, and that the forged letter helped her secure a place.
Key Points
- Defendant Li Zu-er (李祖儿), 31, had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining services by deception over her admission to an EdUHK doctoral programme.
- The offence covered November 30, 2024 to December 16, 2025, when she falsely represented Ho Wai-yip as her academic referee and the March 5, 2024 letter as genuine.
- The court heard Li graduated from EdUHK with a master’s degree in 2019 and had unsuccessfully applied for its doctoral programmes every year since 2021.
- She later submitted an online application with the purported reference letter, was admitted, and began the programme in September last year.
- University staff later confirmed Ho had left EdUHK in July 2021 as an associate professor, and Ho said he had never issued the submitted letter.
- Magistrate Chan Ping-chau said the case was serious because Li’s conduct unfairly deprived another applicant of a chance to enter the doctoral programme, affecting that person’s studies and future prospects. He said the sentence needed a deterrent element, but accepted mitigation that Li had a strong teaching record, had been law-abiding, and offended after being encouraged by an intermediary while placing very high expectations on herself.
- The magistrate also referred to her background, saying she had shown strong academic results and conduct, was passionate about teaching, and had taught in Guangzhou after completing her master’s degree at EdUHK. According to the court, she pursued doctoral study to strengthen her competitiveness, but after repeated failures was persuaded by an intermediary to commit the offence.
- After her arrest, Li said in a video-recorded interview under caution that she had known Ho during her master’s studies and had asked him in 2022 for a recommendation letter. She admitted she used information from a 2021 recommendation letter as the basis for the document in this case, forged the letter and signed Ho’s name on it.
- Chan said imprisonment would have been appropriate, but he decided to give her one chance after considering her genuine remorse, clean record, work disruption and the pressure of being stranded in Hong Kong because of the case. The court also heard her teaching post had been put on hold and would continue only after she completed the community service order.
Why It Matters
The ruling underlines that falsifying academic credentials in Hong Kong can lead to criminal conviction even when the service obtained is university education rather than money or goods. It also shows the court balancing deterrence with rehabilitation where an offender has pleaded guilty, shown remorse and has no previous convictions.