- Title: CHINA: Sentence due for technician in Edison Chen sex picture scandal
- Date: 15th May 2009
- Summary: HONG KONG, CHINA (MAY 11, 2009) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST CHIP TSAO SOUNDBITE, NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST CHIP TSAO, SAYING (English): "I don't think legal responsibility should fall on Edison Chen, because I don't think, I just guess, this is a wild guess, I don't think he meant to embarrass his girlfriends. I think he has been a little technically ignorant about things like laptops and computers that sort of thing. So that the technician who got is laptop became curious about his pictures, he was the guy who made the leak, so if anyone should be blamed it should have been the technician, the go-between."
- Embargoed: 30th May 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: China
- Country: China
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA915MZL799331EQDB0PGYD4WS5
- Story Text: A sentence is expected on Wednesday in the trial against a Hong Kong computer technician accused of stealing sexually explicit photos of actor-singer Edison Chen and various Asian actresses and singers, and distributing them on the Internet.
A Hong Kong computer technician is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday (May 13) after being convicted of stealing racy photos showing actor-singer Edison Chen performing sex acts with local singers and actresses, and circulating them on the Internet.
Sze Ho-chun was found guilty by a Hong Kong magistrate on April 29 of three counts of obtaining access to a computer with a view to making a dishonest gain.
The Canada-born Chen who publicly apologized for the controversy has since largely taken refuge overseas after being vilified in the media.
""There's no doubt whoever obtained these photos had been uploading them onto the internet with malicious and deliberate intent. This matter has deteriorated to the extent that society as a whole has been affected by this, and in this regard, I am deeply saddened," he said at a press conference in Hong Kong.
"I would like now to apologise to all the people for all the suffering it has caused, that has been caused, and the problems that have arisen from this."
A television station in Hong Kong was recently sent a death threat letter accompanied with a bullet, warning Chen to stop making public appearances.
Newpaper columnist Chip Tsao said Chen was not to blame, though it showed he knew little about modern technology.
"I don't think legal responsibility should fall on Edison Chen, because I don't think, I just guess, this is a wild guess, I don't think he meant to embarrass his girlfriends. I think he has been a little technically ignorant about things like laptops and computers that sort of thing, he said."
"So that the technician who got is laptop became curious about his pictures, he was the guy who made the leak, so if anyone should be blamed it should have been the technician, the go-between."
Sze, 24, who serviced a laptop computer belonging to Chen in 2006, was accused of unlocking encrypted files, then copying and distributing over 1,300 sexually explicit pictures.
It was a year-and-a-half later however, before the first pictures hit the Internet and unleashed the media scandal which hurt the showbiz careers of several stars across Asia and tarnished their squeaky-clean reputations.
Tsao said the scandal caused such a media frenzy in Hong Kong because of increasingly conservative attitudes towards sex.
"Hong Kong is a very sexually repressed society. It claims itself to be an international, financial city. But compared with other places like New York, London, or even Tokyo, I think men in Hong Kong are very much claustrophobic as far as sex is concerned," Tsao said.
Chen, who has a regional following, admitted to taking the pictures of him performing sex acts with at least half a dozen women, including the Hong Kong starlets Cecilia Cheung, Bobo Chan and Cantopop star Gillian Chung from the pop duo Twins.
"I admit that I was naive and very silly, but I've grown up now," she said at a press conference apologising to fans.
Since the scandal broke last year, the photographs have spread over the Internet and been splashed across the city's newspapers, burning the careers of starlets such as Chung who had to split from her singing partner Charlene Choi.
Chief Magistrate Tong Man called Sze's actions a "serious crime" as well as a breach of trust in delivering his verdict.
He adjourned sentencing till May 13 but said a jail term was inevitable given the nature of the crime.
Chen, 28, has appeared in films such as "Infernal Affairs" a Hong Kong triad film which inspired Martin Scorsese's "The Departed"
as well as the recently released film "The Sniper."
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