Mainland woman gets 160 hours’ community service over false doctoral reference

A 31-year-old mainland woman has been ordered to complete 160 hours of community service after admitting that she used a recommendation letter falsely attributed to a former academic to obtain education and teaching services from Hong Kong’s education university.

The letter helped her gain admission to the university’s doctoral programme in May 2025, and she began studying there in September. She had pleaded guilty to obtaining services by deception.

The woman had graduated from a master’s programme at the university in 2019 and had applied unsuccessfully for its doctoral course each year from 2021. In an online application in 2024, she named a former associate professor as her academic referee and uploaded a letter dated 5 March that year, said to have been written by him.

University staff later confirmed that the former associate professor had left in July 2021. He told the university that he had not issued the letter submitted with the application. In a recorded interview under caution, the woman said she had asked him for a recommendation in 2022 and had been told she could use a letter he wrote in 2021. She said she used that earlier letter as the basis for the disputed document, signed it herself and uploaded it to the application platform.

The defence said she was a lecturer at a mainland institution and had instructed an intermediary to prepare the recommendation letter before signing it herself in haste. She was described as a doctoral student in international and comparative education and as someone who deeply regretted what she had done.

The sentencing magistrate said the conduct was serious because it had at least unfairly deprived another applicant of an admission opportunity, with possible long-term effects on that person’s academic prospects and employment. A deterrent sentence was required, but the court took account of her genuine remorse, previous teaching record and otherwise good background in imposing community service. Her mainland teaching post had been suspended pending completion of the sentence.