香港特別行政區 訴 邱植

On 20 July 2026, Deputy Judge Yu Chun-cheung in the District Court acquitted Yau Chik (邱植) on all five charges in HKSAR v Yau Chik, DCCC 360/2025. Ms Leung Sun-yin of Li Chi Fan Solicitors, assigned by the Legal Aid Department, acted for the successful first defendant.

The prosecution alleged that the 21-year-old defendant, then a third-year social science student at CUHK, played an on-the-ground role in a Shanghai-public-security-impersonation scam. The 78-year-old complainant, Fung Bing, was in a Wan Chai care home in April 2022 when she received a spoof call, then a fabricated "case report" document, and eventually handed over two Hang Seng ATM cards. Between 16 and 27 May 2022, HK$1,253,400 was withdrawn from her accounts. CCTV at two Hang Seng ATMs captured the defendant personally handling the withdrawals and transfers, and his phone contained the deposit notifications he sent to his alleged controller.

The defendant's case was that he was himself a victim. He said he had received a near-identical call on 11 April 2022 from "Officer Cheng" of the Shanghai Jing'an branch, was told he was implicated in a money-laundering case, and was recruited as a "co-police officer" to assist the investigation. The instructions to deliver documents to the complainant, collect the bank cards, withdraw and transfer the funds, and deposit cash into two third-party accounts all came from Cheng. The defendant used his own HK$20,000 to make up a shortfall when an ATM swallowed a HK$38,000 deposit, kept HK$18,000 at home awaiting further instructions, and continued to google "Shanghai Jing'an branch" after Cheng went silent.

The court held that: (1) the WhatsApp and Telegram exchanges read like exchanges between a controller and a dutiful subordinate rather than between co-conspirators (§73); (2) the defendant's naivety, childish demeanour and repeated errors (forgetting cash, putting a card in the deposit slot, the cartoon-patterned wallet and phone case) were inconsistent with a hardened offender (§71-72); (3) the prosecution's case relied on hindsight and could not displace the reasonable possibility that the defendant genuinely believed he was assisting a legitimate police investigation, given the lower public awareness of such scams during the 2022 COVID period (§65); and (4) applying Mo Yuk Ping v HKSAR (2007) 10 HKCFAR 386 and HKSAR v Harjani (2019) 22 HKCFAR 446, the prosecution had not proved dishonesty for the conspiracy and theft counts, nor that any reasonable person in the defendant's position would necessarily have believed the funds were criminal proceeds for the dealing counts (§77-78).

The judge found the defendant not guilty on all five charges.

For prosecutors handling telephone-scam "on-site operatives", CCTV at the ATM and possession of the victim's bank cards are not enough. Where contemporaneous communications support a genuine "I thought I was helping police" narrative, and the defendant shows indicia of real naivety, expect Mo Yuk Ping and Harjani to push the case toward acquittal unless the prosecution can positively displace that reasonable possibility on the whole of the evidence.