An engineer, who caused a partial blackout at Marina Bay Sands (MBS) in 2010 escaped jail time after the High Court partially allowed his appeal on Thursday. Leslie Liew Cheong Wee, 36, a Malaysian, was last year found guilty by a district court on six computer misuse charges.

He was fined $3,000 each on the first five charges and, fined $15,000 and given a two-week jail term on the sixth charge. On Thursday, the High Court allowed his appeal on the sixth charge, cutting the sentence to a $3,000 fine.

Justice Choo Han Teck said in his judgment that the sixth charge stated that damage was caused. However, the judge said the charge did not give details of the damage, neither was evidence produced at trial to prove that damage was caused.

This meant Liew's original sentence of a $30,000 fine and two weeks' jail was reduced to a $18,000 fine. Liew had hacked into the MBS computer network between May 9 and 12 in 2010 from his home. He was on a project team for a subcontractor engaged to set up MBS' power management control system.