Lau Chi v. The Queen
Read the full judgment text of CACC 1367/1977 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment.
1. The Appellant was convicted on his own confession on two charges in relation to dangerous drugs and sentenced to six months' imprisonment concurrent on each. On the face of the Notice that is all he appeals against, but the record shows that the prosecutor also asked for an order for police supervision and that an order for eighteen months' police supervision was made. The Appellant asks leave to appeal against that and, of course, no objection is taken on behalf of the Crown.
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CACC001367/1977
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----------------- Coram: Huggins J.A. Date of Judgment: 12th January 1978. ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- 1. The Appellant was convicted on his own confession on two charges in relation to dangerous drugs and sentenced to six months' imprisonment concurrent on each. On the face of the Notice that is all he appeals against, but the record shows that the prosecutor also asked for an order for police supervision and that an order for eighteen months' police supervision was made. The Appellant asks leave to appeal against that and, of course, no objection is taken on behalf of the Crown. 2. It is perhaps a somewhat unusual order. The Appellant has a bad record back to 1962. Just under thirty years old he has been before the court on no less than twelve previous occasions and some of those offences related to dangerous drugs. The Appellant accepts that the sentence of imprisonment was fair, but he asks me to interfere with the sentence of supervision. The endorsement of the order on the outside of the magistrate's record is not very clear. I confess that when I read it I understood the order to be one of supervision for "8" months as from the date of the Appellant's release from prison. I am obliged to counsel for the Crown for correcting me on that. He has very properly suggested that "18" months from the date of release was perhaps rather a long term in a case of this kind. The Appellant's complaint is, of course, that he might be visited by the police at his place of work. He says the nature of his work is such that that would be likely to lead to his losing his job. It is a complaint which has been made in innumerable cases in the past. Courts have repeatedly urged that the police should carry out supervision with tact and I must assume that the police will do no more than is reasonably necessary to carry out this order of supervision. However, in all the circumstances I think that an order for eighteen months from the date of release is unnecessarily long. Having misread the record, I thought that eight months was probably a proper order to make. Mr. Hindle does not urge me to make it any longer. I therefore allow this appeal only to the extent of reducing the period of supervision to one of eight months from the date of the Appellant's release. 12th January 1978. Representation: |