A 48-year-old widow, Lam Fung-hoi, convicted earlier of defrauding the Social Welfare Department (SWD) of some HK$330,000 in Comprehensive Social Security Allowance, was given three years' probation and 18 months in jail in the District Court on Friday.

The key to the charge against Lam was that she had been in possession of a joint bank account reputed to contain HK$860,000.

In passing sentence, Judge Eddie Yip said, Lam had never taken money from the joint account. Fraud is a serious crime and Lam may have been given an immediate jail term were it not for some special circumstances in her case.

The judge was critical of the SWD for having cut off Lam's family's allowance long before the case went to court.

The around HK$10,000 allowance granted by the SWD, which the family of five had lived on, was suspended when the department discovered Lam's joint account in 2008.

The HK$1,400 Disability Allowance for Lam's daughter was cut off as well, which the SWD claimed as a way to collect the money back.

"Cutting the family off and asking Lam to pay back the money before she was convicted was equivalent to forcing Lam to admit guilt for a crime before she went on trial," Yip said.

The prosecutor argued that Lam had agreed to the suspension and it was Lam who asked that the subsidy be halted, since she had found a cleaning job, paying HK$3,000 monthly.

The decision to collect the money back by holding Lam's daughter's allowance was agreed on by both sides, added the department.

The judge however dismissed the argument. He also criticized the SWD for the failure of considering Lam's position.

Lam's husband, who was mentally retarded, died of cancer in April.

The widow suffers from anemia, a uterine tumor and is the breadwinner for her family, who used to earn only HK$1,600 a month by washing dishes.

Lam is the mother of three children, two of whom are still going to school. A daughter of hers, 13, is also mentally retarded.

The department sued Lam for concealing that she had a joint savings account with her mother-in-law between 2002 and 2008, during which Lam's husband was unemployed.

Yip said Lam did commit the crime "technically" by failing to report her savings to the department, but the poverty-stricken family didn't use the money to improve their life.

Lam said she will find another part-time job to afford the family expenditure after the sentence on Friday.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

China Daily

(HK Edition 08/27/2011 page1)