R. v. YU WING KEUNG

CACC000454/1996

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1996, No. 454

(Criminal)

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BETWEEN
	THE QUEEN
	and
	YU WING KEUNG

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Coram: Hon. Power, Acting C.J., Bokhary & Ching, JJA in Court

Date of hearing: 12 February, 1997

Date of judgment: 12 February, 1997

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J U D G M E N T

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Ching J.A. (delivering the judgment of the Court) :

1. The applicant was charged with and was unanimously found guilty by a jury of one charge. The charge was that on 10th May, 1992, at Room 2 on the 2nd floor of No. 14, Man On Street in Tai Kok Tsui, he was in possession of a dangerous drug for the purposes of unlawful trafficking. The drugs consisted of a mixture of 670.32 grammes containing 118.49 grammes of salts of esters of morphine. The conviction, and a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment, took place on 16th February, 1993. The application before us today is for an extension of time within which to apply for leave to appeal against the conviction and it is dated 15th August, 1996.

2. The applicant is not represented. He has put forward to us his reasons for not having applied for leave to appeal within time in his written grounds of appeal. Those reasons are as follows. First, he says he could not afford to instruct lawyers. It is to be remarked that there can have been no question of his lack of financial resources unless he had actively considered taking legal advice, presumably for an application for leave to appeal. Secondly, he says that at some time after his imprisonment he was put into solitary confinement for a year or more. He supplies no details. He says that it was only after he was released from solitary confinement that the question of an application out of time was raised casually in conversation with other prisoners. Who raised it and why, he does not say. None of these reasons suffice to allow an application to be made so grossly out of time as this.

3. The position may have been different if the applicant had shown a strong case on the merits. He has not done so. He raises two matters. The first is that he has not received what he calls the written verdict of the Court so that he has nothing upon which to rely in any appeal. That is not a ground at all. Secondly, he complains that the Judge allowed cross-examination on his previous convictions which included convictions for possession of dangerous drugs for the purposes of unlawful trafficking. He repeats this complaint before us orally. It is clear from the summing-up that the cross-examination was allowed because the applicant had raised allegations that the drugs were not his and had been planted upon his premises by the police in order to frame him. That also is what he said to us today. That is all that we have before us and is sufficient to justify the cross-examination which was allowed.

4. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the evidence. The summing-up was very full and discloses evidence on the part of the prosecution that the drugs were indeed in the possession of the applicant for the purposes of unlawful trafficking. The application for an extension of time within which to apply for leave to appeal is dismissed.

(N.P. Power)	(K. Bokhary)	(Charles Ching)
Acting Chief Justice	Justice of Appeal	Justice of Appeal

Representation:

Applicant in person

Mr. A.A. Bruce, Q.C. & Ms. A. Chan, C.C. (Crown Prosecutor) for Crown/Respondent