A mainland student was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for using forged TOEFL scores to graduate from Lingnan University, with the magistrate rejecting their probation plea to emphasize the seriousness of academic fraud.
The 24-year-old male defendant, Jia Peng, pleaded guilty earlier and pleaded for probation, stating that he committed the crime because of failing the exam three times for graduation and had already been disciplined by the school.
According to the Community Service Order, Jia hired someone in Malaysia to take the TOEFL exam for him, but after being caught, he tried to cover up.
To plead for probation, the defense cited a mitigation letter written by a Lingnan University professor. It also pointed out that after the arrest, the defendant chose not to flee but confessed to the police that he had taken the IELTS exam three times, failing all three attempts.
Feeling pressure, he decided to purchase an online test-taking service, which demonstrated that the defendant had already confessed to everything and admitted his wrongdoing.
The defense further argued that the probation officer had rejected a recommendation for community service because they could not guarantee the defendant a visa to enter Hong Kong. However, Jia held a two-way permit to enter Hong Kong, and the visa concerns could have been avoided if the prosecution not delayed the case for 11 months.
Furthermore, the defendant had already been disciplined by the university, experiencing a one-year delay in graduation, receiving two major demerits, and being ordered to perform 100 hours of campus service. Therefore, they requested lenient sentencing and to grant the defendant probation.
Magistrate David Chum Yau-fong noted that he had obtained three probation reports for the defendant. He pointed out that post-secondary institutions also require students to possess integrity and prohibit plagiarism in addition to requiring students to achieve academic standards.
He pointed out that the defendant falsely reported a passing TOEFL score to meet the graduation standard. Afterwards, he provided different versions of his explanation, making the offense more serious than plagiarism, which was close to using a fake degree.
Chum added that post-secondary institutions have wasted significant resources in recent years to verify grades. The defendants' moral failings, which also unfairly treated students who worked hard to achieve the required grades, must be punished as a deterrent.
He cited a community service order report indicating that the defendant lacked genuine remorse and was evasive, and argued that the visa was only one factor in refusing to recommend a community service order.
The defense repeatedly accused the probation officer of misjudgment, but Chum disagreed, believing the officer was stating a balanced perspective on the consideration.
Chum refused to grant probation, pointing out that the defendant was not a Hong Kong resident and that a sentence to probation would convey misinformation if it allowed the defendant to successfully obtain a graduation certificate without bearing any responsibility.
Starting with a five-month prison sentence, reducing it by half a month due to the defendant's voluntary surrender and school disciplinary, and further reducing it by one-third for pleading guilty, Chum sentenced him to an immediate three-month imprisonment.
Jia was enrolled in the university's Public Administration and Smart Governance program, which requires a minimum TOEFL score of 87 or an IELTS score of 6.5 for graduation, and was expected to graduate in 2024.
