Read the full judgment text of CAAR 3/2019 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment was delivered on 1 April 2020 before Yeung VP, Pang JA, M Poon J.
Criminal law – sentencing – review under s.81A Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap 221) – two counts of theft and one count of possession of an identity card relating to another person – respondent picked up victim's wallet and used supplementary credit card in 10 transactions for 76 packets of cigarettes worth HK$4,484 – also kept another person's HK Identity Card and DBS credit card for about half a year – whether community service order of 200 hours per charge (concurrent) was wrong in principle and manifestly inadequate – Starting points: 9 months (Charge 1), 2 years (Charge 2), 12 months (Charge 4); overall 30 months – one-third discount for guilty plea, overall 20 months – further 10 months' deduction for compensation and over 50% service of community service order – final sentence 10 months' imprisonment – credit card frauds with stolen cards extremely serious and warrant deterrent custodial sentence – possession of another's identity card attracts custodial sentence given inherent suspicion of unlawful purpose – 'theft by finding' not applicable where offender exploited credit card through multiple transactions – application to review sentence allowed – community service order quashed and substituted with 10 months' imprisonment – compensation order upheld.
Legal issues: Whether the community service order sentence was wrong in principle and manifestly inadequate · Appropriate starting points and final sentence for the three charges
Outcome: Application to review sentence allowed; the original community service order was quashed and substituted with a sentence of 10 months' imprisonment; the compensation order was upheld.
Cited by 6 cases · Cites 7 cases