TSE YEUNG-LAI v. THE QUEEN

CACC000656/1977

  

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
	1977 No. 656
	(Criminal)

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BETWEEN
	TSE Yeung-lai	Appellant
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

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Coram: Huggins and Pickering JJ.A. and McMullin, J.

Date of Judgment: 9th August 1977.

  

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JUDGMENT

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Huggins, J.A.:

1. The Appellant comes before this court complaining that the sentences of four years' imprisonment imposed upon him upon three convictions for robbery were too severe. We have on a number of occasions recently commented on the rising incidence of robberies by armed gangs which force their way into private residences, threaten, bind, gag and blindfold the occupants and then ransack the premises, and we have warned that the courts might have to take stringent steps to hold this type of crime in check. It is a serious matter when citizens cannot walk the streets in safety: it is intolerable when they are unable to feel safe within the confines of their own homes.

2. There was evidence on two of the charges that the Appellant himself went armed with a knife and in the third robbery one member of the gang placed a twelve-inch knife on the back of a woman's neck. It is true that the Appellant pleaded guilty but against that one must balance the facts that his finger prints were found at the scene of one of the crimes and that property stolen from another of the flats was recovered from his home. Furthermore, he had three previous convictions for offences of violence and one for unlawful possession of dangerous drugs. Indeed, at the time of his arrest he was still subject to a sentence of six months' imprisonment suspended for three years for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The learned judge in the present case activated that sentence.

3. This court has supported sentences of four years' imprisonment for the more common offences of robbery committed in public places and sentences of five and six years have been passed for crimes of the type with which we are here concerned. These invasions of private homes have got to be stopped. In our view a sentence of four years' imprisonment for an offender with previous convictions who has been convicted on three further charges does not reflect the gravity of the offences and, whilst not wishing to detract from the principle that every case must be decided upon its own merits, we indicate that in general this court is unlikely to interfere with sentences in the region of six years' imprisonment for this type of offence.

4. We allow the appeal and increase the sentences to six years' imprisonment on each charge. In the circumstances, however, we shall take the unusual course of ordering that the previous suspended sentence shall run concurrently with those sentences.

  

9th August 1977.

  

Representation: