CHAN KI-SAI v. THE QUEEN
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CACC000236/1983
Headnote - Sentencing - Pickpocketing - suggested norm of nine months.
| IN THE HIGH COURT | 1983 No. 236 (Criminal) |
BETWEEN
| CHAN KI-SAI | Appellant | |
| and | ||
| THE QUEEN | Respondent |
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Coram: Yang J.A(sitting as an additional High Court Judge)
Date: 10th March, 1983.
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JUDGMENT
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1. The Appellant is 22 years old and pleaded guilty to a charge of theft, for which he was sentenced by the trial Magistrate to three months' imprisonment.
2. The offence for which he was convicted was one of pickpocketing, at the races. He has one previous conviction in 1981 for pickpocketing and was given a sentence of six months' imprisonment suspended for twelve months. He is concurrently serving a sentence of two years' imprisonment for a burglary totally unconnected with the present offence.
3. I am informed by Crown Counsel that the sentences for pickpocketing in the Magistrates' Courtsrange from three to twelve months. When I was a Magistrate in the late fifties and early sixties, the tariff for the usual. type of pickpocketing in a public place (as this one is) was nine months. We took into account the audacity and a certain degree of skill that were required in the commission of such offences, and also the vulnerability of the unsuspecting public in Hong Kong's crowded streets and other places to which the general public had access. The offence was as prevalent then as it is now. I see no reason why different considerations and a different tariff should apply. Nine months still seems to me to be the correct norm.
4. I therefore allow the appeal and substitute a sentence of nine months for the three months imposed.
Representation:
Appellant in person.
Mr. John Mcnamara for Crown/Respondent.