HUI HON WAH v. THE QUEEN

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 24 OF 1973

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BETWEEN
	HUI HON WAH	Appellant
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

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Coram: Huggins, McMullin and Pickering, JJ.

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JUDGMENT

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Huggins, J.:

1.  The Appellant appeals against his sentences pursuant to leave granted by the single judge. He pleaded Guilty in the District Court to obtaining money by deception and to blackmail. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment on each charge concurrent.

2.  The circumstances of the offences were that, as to the first charge, the Appellant telephoned a father, whose son the father that he had abducted the son and demanded a ransom of $5,000. He told him to take that money to a particular place. Fearing for the safety of his son the father did so after drawing the money from the bank. The money was paid over and the victim subsequently discovered that his son had been at school all the time. Some few days later the Appellant again telephoned to this man and indicated that the money paid had not been enough. The Appellant demanded a further $5,000 and threatened that if it was not paid he and his associates would inflict harm upon the son.

3.  So far as the victim was concerned there was really no difference between these two charges: he received a demand for money as a consideration for the safety of his child and, as the learned judge says, they were both cruel crimes – particularly as the son is a small boy. Nevertheless, as the learned judge again says, it is the continuation of the demand by a renewed telephone call that makes this a serious case. Demanding money in such circumstances is, of course, always serious but, when it is repeated as it was here, the pressure upon the parent becomes very grave.

4.  The Appellant has most forcibly urged before us certain matters in mitigation. He was engaged to be married and shortly before these offences were committed he was told by his fianoee that she was pregnant. It was, therefore, of some urgency to the Appellant that the marriage should not be delayed, but he was short of money. He says that it was in order to obtain the money which he needed that he committed these offences. That, unfortunately, is not entirely true. It may have been the reason for the first of the offences but he had then obtained the amount of money which he said that he required and it can have been nothing but greed and the success of his first crime that led him to commit the second.

5.  Although the Appellant is a man of previous good character, in our view the sentence on the first charge was a proper one. We incline to the view that he was extremely lucky that the sentence on the second charge was not greater and that it was made concurrent. We certainly see no reason to interfere in this case and the appeal is dismissed.

28^th March, 1973