LI KONG-ON v. THE QUEEN

CACC001097/1978

 

IN THE SUPREME COURT	1978 No. 1097
	(Criminal Appeal)

 

BETWEEN:
	LI KONG-ON	Appellant
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

Coram: Briggs, C.J.

Date of Judgment: 29th November, 1978.

 

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant pleaded guilty to one offence of criminal intimidation and was sentenced to be detained in a training centre. He appeals against his sentence.

2. The plaintiff, who is aged 20, demanded $5,000 from his mother with threats. He grabbed her hair and so frightened his mother that she made a report to the Police. In consequence of this, as I have already said, he was found guilty of criminal intimidation.

3. The appellant has two previous convictions, including one of being a member of a triad society. Reports were received from a Probation Officer and from the Intake Officer of the Pik Uk Correctional Institution. Neither report was favourable to the appellant. The magistrate therefore made the order that he did. At the hearing of the appeal the mother of the appellant told the court that she had forgiven the appellant and was willing and eager to have him back to live with her. I was also handed a letter from the father of the appellant to a like effect.

4. The mother of the appellant struck me as being sincere in her present attitude towards the appellant and she said that her only purpose of going to the Police was that she hoped that they would give the appellant a good talking-to and warn him to improve his behaviour in the future. She did not expect that he would be made the subject of a training centre order.

5. As this family dispute has now been resolved, I would have liked to have put the appellant on a bond or made a probation order against him. But it is obvious from the reports that I have read that such a course would not be proper in this case. It is suggested by Counsel for the Crown that I should pass a suspended sentence on the appellant in lieu of the training centre order. This is I think the proper course to pursue.

6. The appeal therefore is allowed to the extent that the order to be detained in a training centre is quashed and there is substituted therefor a term of imprisonment for six months, such term to be suspended for eighteen months.

 

 

	(Geoffrey Briggs)
	Chief Justice.

 

Representation:

Appellant in person

Hodge for crown