YIP KAU v. THE QUEEN

CACC000793/1975

 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)

 

\CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 793 OF 1975

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BETWEEN:
	YIP Kau	Appellant
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

Coram: Briggs, C.J.

Date of Judgment: 4th October, 1975.

 

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant was charged with causing wasteful employment of police contrary to section 91(2) of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance. He was sentenced to be detained in a training centre.

2. Early in the morning of July 17th, 1975 the appellant presented himself at the Casualty Ward of a hospital and asked for treatment for certain wounds on his body. The case was reported to the police.

3. The appellant told the police that he had been set upon by a gang of thugs at a certain location. The police went to the spot and found that his story was quite untrue.

4. When this was put to the appellant, who had been detained in hospital for treatment of his wounds, he admitted that he had lied. In fact, he had received his wounds in a fight in a restaurant in another area of Hong Kong.

5. The appellant is 16 and has a clean record. The maximum sentence for an offence under this subsection is a fine of $2,000 or a term of imprisonment for six months.

6. A probation report states that the appellant is not suitable for a probation order; and another report states that he is medically unfit for detention in a detention centre.

7. This is not a case when a prison sentence would be proper because of the age of the appellant. This includes a suspended sentence since such a sentence is a sentence of imprisonment.

8. As I have said, the maximum term of imprisonment for this offence is six months. The minimum period of detention under a Training Centre Order is nine months and the usual period for which a penson subject to such an order is detained is about eighteen months - and may run to three years.

9. I appreciate the difficulties of the magistrate who tried this case and I do not think that a Training Centre Order is necessarily wrong in principle for this offence.

10. However, in the present case I consider such a sentence to be excessive. The age of the appellant, his pleas of guilty and the fact that this is a first offence must all have weight.

11. The appellant has been in custody since his arrest on July 17th. At first he was detained in the custodial ward of the hospital at which he was receiving treatment but since August 22nd, 1975, he has been in custody at a training centre.

12. In the event I allow the appeal to the extent that the order of detention in a training centre will be quashed. I further order that a conviction is to be recorded and that the appellant be released forthwith.

	(Geoffrey Briggs)
	Chief Justice.

 

Representation:

L. Leong (George Liang & Co.) for appellant.

F. Wong for crown/respondent.