KWOK KAR-CHUNG v. THE QUEEN
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CACC000447/1980
| IN THE COURT OF APPEAL | |
| 1980 No. 447 | |
| (Criminal) |
| BETWEEN | ||
| KWOK Kar-chung | Appellant | |
| and | ||
| THE QUEEN | Respondent |
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Coram: Roberts, C.J., Huggins and McMullin, JJ.A.
Date of Judgment: 22nd October 1980.
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JUDGMENT
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Huggins, J.A.:
1. The Appellant appeals against sentence pursuant to leave granted by the single judge. The Appellant was originally unrepresented but the learned judge was of opinion that he ought to have legal aid and we have been grateful for the assistance of counsel as a result.
2. The Appellant was sentenced to 5½ years' imprisonment for what the judge described, and rightly so, as a very serious robbery. The learned District Judge has commented in his Reasons for Sentence that on reflection he thought that the sentence was lenient. The Appellant had a previous criminal record. He was sentenced in 1974 to a total of six years' imprisonment: one month for defilement of a girl between the age of 13 and 16 and 12 months concurrent for blackmail and then, in another case, on two counts of rape five years concurrent, for aiding and abetting rape (two charges) five years, for forcible abduction of a female four years, for unlawful detention one year, and for burglary six months: all those sentences were concurrent, but they were consecutive to the sentences in the first case. What is important is that at the date when those sentences were passed this Appellant was 15 years of age. He had an unhappy childhood. His mother died when he was only two and subsequently his father re-married, but the step-mother was not as helpful to this young man as she might have been. Happily the Appellant has recently been married and his wife is clearly a stabilising factor in his life. The Probation Officer who originally reported on this Appellant was aware of that fact, but he was not optimistic as to the chances of rehabilitation.
3. We, with some hesitation, called for further reports and those are now to hand. I shall not go into details, but they are such that we feel that we are able to take a different view from that taken by the judge. We propose therefore to allow this appeal and to make an order for probation for a term of two years on the usual conditions.
22nd October 1980.
Representation: