Education University PhD student gets 160 hours of community service over doctored reference

A mainland Chinese woman has been handed a 160-hour community service order after pleading guilty to forging a reference letter for her application to a doctoral programme at a Hong Kong university.

Li Zuer, who faced a charge of obtaining services by deception, appeared at the Fanling Magistrates’ Courts on Monday.

The court heard earlier that she had commissioned an agent to rewrite a reference letter for a doctoral programme at the Education University of Hong Kong, after previously failing to gain admission, local media reported.

According to the prosecution, she submitted a doctored letter – dated March 2024 – based on a reference that was written for her by Ho Wai-yip, a former associate professor at the Education University who taught her when she was studying for a master’s degree there.

The letter stated that Li’s English proficiency could be improved. The edited version was rewritten to state that Li’s academic performance was exceptional.

Li was admitted to the university, studying international and comparative education. She has since lost her place at the school.

Handing down the sentence, magistrate Kenneth Chan said the case was serious as Li could have robbed another applicant of their chance for enrolment, The Witness reported.

But he said he took into account the defence’s evidence that Li had strong academic results and was devoted to teaching, and committed the offence because she was influenced by her agent.

Li’s mother submitted a mitigation letter to the court stating that her daughter had always been an honest person and felt remorseful about her offence.

Chan said that while imprisonment was a viable punishment for her case, he had decided to give her a chance and sentenced her to community service instead.

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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.