A former assistant teacher at the Lutheran School for the Deaf has been jailed for 28 days after concealing an ongoing Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation while securing and keeping his job at the government aided special school.
Yau Sing ho, 32, was sentenced at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts after being found guilty of three fraud offences linked to his failure to disclose the ICAC investigation during his employment at the school.
The court heard that Yau knew the school would have been unlikely to employ him if its management had been aware that he was under investigation. Despite that knowledge, he signed an employment contract and continued working at the school.
Magistrate Jeffrey Sze Cho yiu said Yau’s conduct showed that the deception was deliberate from the beginning rather than the result of an oversight or misunderstanding.
Previous conviction over insurance work
Yau had already faced criminal proceedings before the latest case.
In February, he was convicted of fraud after failing to disclose that he had been carrying out outside insurance related work while employed as an immigration officer. He received a three month prison sentence, which was suspended for three years.
That earlier conviction formed part of the background to the subsequent ICAC case.
The commission brought three additional fraud charges against Yau in January this year. The charges concerned his failure to reveal that he was the subject of an ongoing ICAC investigation when he sought and retained employment as an assistant teacher.
The offences occurred on three occasions between July 2022 and November 2023.
The case raised concerns not only about the information Yau withheld, but also about the circumstances in which he obtained a position working with students who had special educational needs.
Court says deception began when he signed contract
During sentencing, defence counsel Franco Kuan Bak on asked the court to consider a community service order instead of imprisonment.
Kuan said a community service order report concerning Yau was favourable. He told the court that his client had shown a strong desire to change his life and avoid further offending.
The defence also argued that Yau represented a low risk of reoffending. Kuan pointed to Yau’s previous good character and his work supporting students with special educational needs during his time at the school.
He asked Magistrate Sze to impose a community service order of moderate duration.
The court, however, rejected that approach.
Sze said Yau had intended to deceive the school from the outset. The magistrate pointed specifically to the employment contract Yau signed after attending his interview.
At that point, Sze said, Yau already knew about the ICAC investigation and understood that the school would not have hired him if it had known about it.
That finding was central to the sentencing decision.
Rather than treating the matter as a failure to disclose information at a later stage, the court considered Yau’s conduct part of a deliberate effort to obtain employment under circumstances in which he knew he might otherwise have been rejected.
Salary was a key motivation, court hears
Sze said Yau had been motivated by the prospect of earning a salary and had chosen to take the risk that his circumstances would not be discovered.
The decision suggests the court viewed the financial benefit of securing employment as a significant factor in the offending.
Yau was not simply accused of failing to volunteer information after being hired. According to the magistrate’s assessment, he knew the information was relevant to the school’s decision and proceeded with the employment process anyway.
The court also considered the timing of Yau’s eventual disclosure.
Sze noted that Yau only informed the school about the ICAC investigation after the case had attracted widespread media attention.
That delay weighed against the defence request for a community based sentence. By the time the school learned about the investigation, the matter had already become public.
For the court, the timing reinforced the view that Yau had continued to conceal the information while benefiting from his employment.
Work with students considered in mitigation
The defence nevertheless presented evidence about Yau’s conduct while working at the special school.
Kuan told the court that Yau had helped students with special educational needs during his employment. His previous good character was also raised in an effort to show that the offences did not fully represent his character or his conduct in other areas of life.
The favourable community service report was another factor cited by the defence.
Such submissions were aimed at persuading the court that rehabilitation could be achieved without sending Yau to prison. The defence maintained that a community service order would provide an appropriate punishment while allowing him to demonstrate that he was prepared to change.
Sze ultimately decided that imprisonment was warranted.
The magistrate sentenced Yau to 28 days behind bars.
Bail granted pending appeal
Yau did not immediately begin serving the sentence.
Following the sentencing, he applied for bail pending an appeal. The application was granted, allowing him to remain on bail while the appeal process proceeds.
The immediate outcome therefore leaves the 28 day sentence in place, subject to the appeal.
The case also places renewed attention on the importance of truthful disclosures during employment applications, particularly where a position involves public sector funding and responsibility for vulnerable or special educational needs students.
For employers, information about an applicant’s legal or regulatory circumstances can affect decisions about suitability and trust. For applicants, withholding such information can carry consequences well beyond the original employment decision.
In Yau’s case, the court found that the decision to conceal the investigation was not accidental. He knew the information could affect whether he received the job, signed the contract anyway and continued working while the investigation remained undisclosed.
The sentence now leaves the next stage in the hands of the appeal process.
Do you think a prison sentence was appropriate in this case, or should community service have been considered sufficient punishment?