Jailed for leaking photos

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong computer technician was jailed on Wednesday for eight and a half months for stealing more than 1,000 sexually explicit photos of singer Edison Chen with a string of starlets.

Sze Ho-chun, an employee of computer shop Elite Multimedia, was sentenced by magistrate Tong Man at Kowloon City Magistrates’ Court.

Sze had copied 1,300 sex photos from Chen’s laptop when the Canadian-born singer-actor brought it in for repairs in 2006.

The prosecution said that the 24-year-old saved the images of Chen and other local celebrities on a compact disc, which he then passed to another of his customers.

The images began spreading online in February last year and sparked one of the city’s biggest sex scandals.

The photos, which Chen has admitted taking himself, showed him in compromising positions with celebrities including Canto-pop star Gillian Chung, actress Cecilia Cheung and former actress Bobo Chan.

The scandal saw Chen flee to his childhood home of Canada and damaged the careers of several of the stars involved.

Sze had been found guilty at an earlier hearing on three counts of obtaining access to a computer with a view to dishonest gain for himself or another. — AFP

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