HKSAR v. Leung Wai Kit, Jeff

DCCC 640/2019

[2020] HKDC 848

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 640 OF 2019

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.The defendant has been convicted after trial of two charges of wounding with intent, the most serious wounding charge. He has also been convicted of one charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

2.I will not repeat the facts of this case but will say that because of something so trivial which dented his male ego the victims suffered serious injury and he will now serve a significant term of imprisonment.

3.PW1, the father of the two other victims, went out to enjoy a movie with his sons.  He asked the defendant to turn his phone off as it was annoying them during the movie.  The defendant obviously felt so slighted that he left during the movie to whistle-blow and call people to avenge him.  He gathered people to attack three innocent people.  This must have significantly affected all of them.

4.For something so pathetic, PW2 had stitches to a blow to his head and his father was beaten unconscious and had stitches to two wounds to his head and face as well as fractures to his facial bones, trauma to his eye and cornea, retina problems and some residual effect to his vision in his right eye.  A finger was broken in his left hand and an upper incisor tooth knocked out of his mouth.  He was admitted into hospital for five days and then had to have surgery several weeks later because of continuing problems in his right eye.  All of this because he politely, without being rude, asked the defendant to turn his phone off in the cinema.

5.PW2 and PW3 are young men who were subject to an attack and I am sure must have been in shock even after the pain of their injuries subsided.  They witnessed their father beaten around the head and unconscious on the road.  He looked barely recognisable in the ambulance in the photographs.  It was such a gratuitous and unnecessary incident to have happened.

6.The defendant is 28 years old, a driver and recently married to the woman who was in the cinema with him that night.  They married in June 2019 and their son was born in December 2019.  He is the breadwinner and she is a housewife.

7.Mr Khosa has said all he can say on behalf of the defendant in mitigation.  Sentencing section 17 wounding charges are very case specific and there is no tariff as such.  An immediate custodial sentence is required.

8.The defendant is not a man with a clear record; he has three previous convictions.  In 2009 he was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, in 2012 he was convicted of possession of dangerous drugs and in 2015 he was convicted of possession for sale of goods to which a forged trademark had been applied.

9.I have taken into account various factors specific to this case and that is the victims were completely innocent and did not provoke such a vicious attack.  The attack was launched in a public place. Weapons were used, hard blunt long heavy torches which, as we can see, are capable of causing serious injury.  This attack was orchestrated by the defendant calling upon others to attack the victims over an astonishingly minor matter.  It was an attack by multiple thugs organised by the defendant.

10.It was an armed attack which has caused serious injury and some permanent lasting injury to PW1.  They were all defenceless victims.  Accordingly, I find a starting point of 5 years’ imprisonment entirely appropriate to reflect the seriousness of the facts of this case for Charges 1 and 2.  I take a starting point of 1 year for Charge 3.  I see no reason to discount those starting points; the defendant was convicted after trial.

11.The defendant is sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for Charges 1 and 2 and 1 year imprisonment for Charge 3.

12.All sentences will be served concurrently.

13.Accordingly, the defendant is sentenced to a total term of 5 years’ imprisonment.