香港特別行政區 訴 劉偉娟及另四人

On 12 October 2026, Deputy District Judge Mr Wong Chi-cheung (黃士翔) handed down judgment in HKSAR v 劉偉娟及另四人 DCCC 341/2024 [2026] HKDC 1889, convicting the third and fourth defendants of attempted fraud under the Anti-epidemic Fund's Retail Sector Subsidy Scheme, while acquitting the first, second, and fifth defendants' co-accused on the same scheme. Mr Ha Kwan-ting (夏焜亭) and Mr Sin Wai-sham (單偉琛) appeared for the prosecution.

The case concerned 11 subsidy applications made between 9 and 12 April 2020, each claiming HK$80,000. Five defendants faced 11 counts of attempted fraud contrary to section 16A of the Theft Ordinance (Cap. 210) and section 159G of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 200). D1, D2, and D5 were charged together over applications 1 to 8 and 10; D3 alone over application 9; and D4 alone over application 11. The applications variously claimed retail operations at a Wellington Street address (Wellington 3/F) and a Canton Road address, supported by shop photos, business registrations, and (during PwC appeal interviews) invoices from a "真美清潔公司" (Chan Mei Cleaning).

The court first addressed the elements of fraud. Citing _HKSAR v Chan Kam Ching_ [2022] HKCFA 7 and section 16A(3), the court reaffirmed that deceit is established where the defendant induces another to believe a falsehood, knowing or believing it to be false, and that section 16A no longer requires proof of dishonesty as a separate element (§247, §248). The court then applied the subjective test for recklessness from _R v G_ [2004] 1 AC 1034 and _Sin Kam Wah v HKSAR_ (2005) 8 HKCFAR 192, holding that "reckless deceit" under section 16A means more than negligence: it requires indifference to whether a statement is true or false (§250–§252).

On the facts, the court found clear deceit in the applications themselves. Shop photos for applications 1 to 4, 7, and 10 had been taken at Eslite Bookstore in Causeway Bay (§265), and application 8's photos matched those taken at IKEA in Causeway Bay five months later (§267). The "真美清潔公司" had no company or business registration, and invoices from it were bogus (§288). The court drew a strong inference from Hong Kong Electric consumption data: the Wellington Street 3/F unit (about 1,000 sq ft) recorded only tens of HK$ in monthly electricity across the relevant period, which the court said could not support nine retail operations, or even one, in that space (§274, §277). The Canton Road address showed similarly negligible consumption over three months, fewer than 49 kWh in total (§279).

The court dismissed D1's challenge to the admissibility of evidence obtained during the PwC appeal interviews. Applying _HKSAR v Muhammad Riaz Khan_ (2012) 15 HKCFAR 232, the court held the discretion to exclude was not engaged: the authorities did not know who the applicants were at that stage, the meetings were not compulsory, the warning language was read out, and admitting the evidence would not encourage future impropriety.

The court convicted D3 and D4, and D5 across all counts touching him. D3 had submitted photos taken inside his own home, not the shop, contradicting the application form's requirement for a one-month-old shopfront photo (§269). D4, the sole director of 高飛創作有限公司, had signed business-registration changes days before the application, switching the business nature to include retail and changing the address to Canton Road: the only irresistible inference was that he made application 11 knowing it was false (§319). D1 and D2 were acquitted: the court accepted D1 was a nominal director who signed documents under D5's instruction without reckless indifference, and accepted D2 as a father who left retail matters to his son and saw no obvious risk.

For practitioners prosecuting subsidy-scheme frauds, the judgment confirms three working tools: (1) utility-consumption data can be decisive in disproving on-site retail operations, (2) matching photographs from third-party locations (Eslite, IKEA) plus forensic image comparison can establish deceit beyond reasonable doubt, and (3) post-application verification interviews conducted by scheme administrators on police instruction are unlikely to be excluded, provided the administrator reads the prescribed warning and the applicant attends voluntarily.