CHAN KWONG-MING v. THE QUEEN

CACC000600/1975

 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)

 

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 600 OF 1975

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BETWEEN
	CHAN Kwong-ming	Appellant
	and
	The Queen	Respondent

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Coram: McMullin J. in Court.

Date of Judgment: 18th August, 1975.

 

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant appeals against sentences totalling three years' imprisonment imposed upon him for his conviction on 24 counts of larceny and blackmail. The counts were linked in pairs. Each count concerning an occasion upon which it was alleged that the appellant had approached a shop keeper and made an unwarranted demand thereby obtaining a sum of $2 being conjoined with a charge of theft of the same money.

2. In his full and very helpful statement of findings the magistrate imposing sentence referred to the fact that the offences had occurred over a period of about six weeks between the 2nd of May and the 18th of June. He noted the fact that three victims appeared to have been involved in the twelve occasions out of which the 24 charges have arisen. On each occasion the victim shop keeper upon being approached by the appellant gave him a sum of $2 after a demand. The magistrate had regard to the fact that the appellant has a previous record involving robbery and going equipped for stealing and being a member of a triad society and he rightly, in my view, took the view that a custodial sentence was required in the present case. In considering the totality of sentence however he thought that although all of these offences were precisely of the same nature he should impose consecutive sentences in respect of the offences against separate individual victims. The victims were persons who were carrying on different businesses at different addresses and he concluded that it would be just to make all sentences in respect of a particular victim concurrent but consecutive to the sentences imposed in respect of the offences committed against the other victims.

3. I have been to some extent hampered by the fact that no detailed account of the circumstances of these demands has been placed before the court. The appellant himself has stressed the fact that sums of money involved on each occasion was small and that he did not use any weapon or employ any form of violence against the shop keepers. In all the circumstances and not without some hesitation I have come to the conclusion that the sum of these sentences was too heavy. The appellant has been to a Training Centre; he has been given probation and he has had two short custodial sentences. A considerably heavier custodial sentence in respect of the present offences is certainly proper and desirable. I have however had the assistance of Miss Beeson who, from records at her disposal, has been able to inform the court that the demands made of these shop keepers did not involve threats of Triad action or any form of violence and seem to have succeeded merely as a result of the appellant's putting on a fierce expression on his face. The sums involved total, over the whole period, only $24. It is, of course, the pattern of behaviour that is reprehensible and I would not say anything to minimise the seriousness of that kind of behaviour but in all the circumstances it appears to me that justice will be best served if for the sentences of twelve months on each of the counts I substitute a sentence of six months and maintain the magistrate's order otherwise and it is so ordered. That will reduce the overall sentence to eighteen months.

	(A.M. McMullin)
	Puisne Judge

 

Representation:

Appellant in person.

Miss Clare-Marie Beeson for Crown/Respt.