Prosecutors seek stiffer sentences for 12 lab workers who falsified safety reports for Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge
- Deputy director of public prosecutions William Tam argues the group’s sentences were much lighter than those handed to six defendants in a related case concerning the bridge
- The 12 technicians and assistants received a range of sentences in 2019 for altering records and replacing specimens when compiling reports on the strength of the bridge’s concrete
Hong Kong prosecutors have asked the Court of Appeal to impose harsher sentences on 12 laboratory workers found guilty of falsifying safety test reports for a mega bridge linking the city to Macau and mainland China.
The group of technicians and assistants from Jacobs China, contracted by the government to test the strength of concrete used in the crossing, received a range of sentences in 2019 for altering computer records and replacing genuine specimen cubes with fakes when compiling the test reports.
The court heard that between 2013 and 2016, the 12 staff members at the testing laboratory on Lantau Island would falsify the sets of documents – 87 of them in total – whenever they failed to conduct the concrete compression tests in accordance with government requirements due to heavy workloads or poor performance.
Six of the defendants were subsequently jailed for up to two years, while four received suspended terms, and the remaining two were ordered to complete 160 to 240 hours of community service.
On Tuesday, deputy director of public prosecutions William Tam Yiu-ho SC argued there was a very obvious disparity in these sentences when compared to those handed to six defendants in a related case concerning the bridge, who admitted to the same charge and were jailed by the same judge for 21 to 32 months, with time shaved off to account for their guilty pleas.
