HKSAR v. Sum Ka Wa

CACC 144/2023, [2024] HKCA 760

On Appeal From [2023] HKCFI 2275

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO 144 OF 2023

(ON APPEAL FROM HCCC NO 199 OF 2020)

________________________

________________________

_________________________________________

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

_________________________________________

Hon Macrae Acting CJHC (giving the Reasons for Judgment of the Court):

1.On 24 August 2020, the appellant (“D3”) pleaded guilty to three charges before a magistrate and was duly committed to the High Court for sentence. On 13 July 2023, the appellant confirmed his pleas of guilty before Toh J (“the judge”) in the High Court in respect of two counts of trafficking in dangerous drugs[1] (Counts 2 and 3); and one count of manufacturing a dangerous drug[2] (Count 4).

2.The appellant was sentenced on the same day to a total period of 26 years and 10 months’ imprisonment. He was granted leave to appeal against sentence by the Single Judge[3], the respondent having partially conceded the leave application. Leave was granted to the appellant on all grounds of appeal.

3.On 30 July 2024, we allowed the appeal and substituted a sentence of 24 years’ imprisonment for the sentence of 26 years and 10 months’ imprisonment passed by the judge. We said we would hand down the reasons for our decision at a later date. These are our reasons.

The Summary of Facts[4]

4.At about 9:25 pm on 19 October 2018, Cheng Ke-fung (D1) was intercepted by police officers as he emerged from residential premises in Yuen Long carrying several plastic bags subsequently found to contain quantities of cocaine and cocaine hydrochloride[5]. He was arrested and cautioned before the officers gained entry to the premises, from which he had just emerged. The dangerous drugs carried by D1 were particularised in Count 1 of the indictment, which was alleged against D1 alone.

5.Inside the premises, the officers found the appellant, together with an even greater quantity of dangerous drugs[6], which formed the subject-matter of Count 3. Also discovered inside the premises were an abundance of utensils, paraphernalia and containers used in the manufacturing and packaging of cocaine, which provided the subject‑matter of Count 4. The appellant was arrested, together with D1, for trafficking in the drugs inside the premises. He was subsequently individually charged with trafficking in the drugs found on D1 (Count 2), jointly charged with D1 with trafficking in the drugs found in the premises (Count 3) and individually charged with manufacturing a dangerous drug inside the premises (Count 4).

6.Further forensic tests were carried out, which confirmed the presence of the appellant’s thumbprints on various utensils used in the manufacturing of dangerous drugs inside the premises, and his DNA on some of the bags of dangerous drugs and packaging material inside the premises, as well as the bags carried by D1.

7.The Government Chemist considered that the process of “cracking” cocaine from cocaine hydrochloride and sodium bicarbonate to cocaine base could have taken place inside the premises. However, the Summary of Facts did not go so far as to provide an estimate of the scale and capacity of the manufacturing operation.

8.Nevertheless, the total estimated street value of all the dangerous drugs seized on 19 October 2018 was later assessed at HK$38,181,941.45.

The sentence passed by the judge

9.In passing sentence, on 13 July 2023, the judge found that what was going on inside the premises was not a “one-off” occurrence[7], but a “fairly large” operation capable of producing a large amount of dangerous drugs[8]. She further found that the appellant, whilst not the mastermind, was “a custodian of the whole operation”[9].

10.In relation to Count 2, the judge adopted the same starting point of 25 years and 3 months’ imprisonment, as she did in relation to D1 on Count 1 for the same drugs. Giving the appellant a one-third discount for his plea of guilty, the sentence on Count 2 thereby became 16 years and 10 months’ imprisonment. In respect of Count 3, the judge adopted a starting point of 33 years’ imprisonment, which was also reduced by one-third to 22 years’ imprisonment for the appellant’s plea of guilty. Lastly, in relation to Count 4, the judge also adopted 33 years’ imprisonment as the appropriate starting point, which was similarly reduced by one-third to 22 years’ imprisonment for the appellant’s plea of guilty.

11.The judge arrived at her final sentence in respect of the appellant by ordering 4 years of the 22 years’ imprisonment on Count 3 to run partly consecutively to the 16 years and 10 months on Count 2, thus giving a combined sentence for the two offences of 20 years and 10 months’ imprisonment. She then ordered 6 years of the 22 years’ imprisonment passed on Count 4 to run partly consecutively to the combined sentences on Counts 2 and 3; thus making an overall sentence of 26 years and 10 months’ imprisonment for the appellant. It is against that sentence that the appellant appeals.

An overview of the grounds of appeal

12.Mr Percy, for the appellant, has advanced four grounds of appeal. Ground 1 and Ground 4 both address the manifest excessiveness of the overall sentence. Grounds 2 and 3 are concerned with the judge’s application of a consecutive element in respect of Counts 3 and 4 thus leading to a distorted overall totality of sentence. In particular, Mr Percy argued by Ground 2 that the judge erred in making the sentence on Count 3 partly consecutive to that on Count 2 leading to an inflated starting point as between the two counts of trafficking; and by Ground 3, that the judge also erred in making the sentence on Count 4 partly consecutive to the total sentence on Counts 2 and 3, leading to a further inflation of the overall starting point.

Ground 2: the sentence on Counts 2 and 3

13.In support of Ground 2, Mr Percy relied on the decision in HKSAR v Lam Chi Wa[10], where the Court endorsed the approach of adding up the various quantities of drugs seized on the same day, at the same time but at different places, to arrive at a notional starting point for the whole amount. He invited the Court to adopt the same course by combining the drugs in Count 2 and Count 3, since they effectively arose out of a single episode or transaction, in order to arrive at a combined notional starting point. Had the judge done so, the appropriate bracket of sentence within the relevant guidelines on Count 3 would have been the same. He submitted that this approach also accorded with the observations and approach of the Court in HKSAR v Ngai Yiu Ching[11] and HKSAR v Wan Lau Mei[12].

14.By reference to the sentencing guidelines in HKSAR v Abdallah[13], Mr Percy suggested that, by using the mechanism of concurrent sentences, 33 years’ imprisonment would be the appropriate notional overall starting point for Counts 2 and 3 when taken together, which should have been reduced to 22 years’ imprisonment upon the appellant’s guilty pleas.

Ground 3: the sentence on Count 4

15.It was acknowledged by Mr Percy that the most serious offence faced by the appellant was Count 4. However, he questioned the correctness of the notional starting point on Count 4, since it was unclear from the judge’s sentencing reasons whether the factors set out in R v Cheung Wai Kwong[14] and HKSAR v Kan Kong Fai[15] had been taken into account, other than as to the appellant’s role. He pointed out that the Summary of Facts, which provided the basis of the appellant’s pleas of guilty, did not state the size of the manufacturing operation in question; however, it would appear that the judge took into account primarily the quantity of cocaine in Counts 2 and 3, as well as the cocaine hydrochloride (22,086.33 grammes) and sodium bicarbonate (1,200.88 grammes) in Count 3, together with the nature and quantity of the drug related utensils found inside the premises, to assess the size of the manufacturing operation in Count 4.

16.Mr Percy submitted that, although the judge purported to adopt “a global approach”[16] to sentence, she failed to give sufficient consideration to the fact that the largest quantity of dangerous drugs involved in Counts 2 and 3, namely the cocaine and cocaine hydrochloride, were the product of, or associated with, the manufacturing operation in Count 4.

17.He also queried the correctness of the judge’s adoption of 33 years’ imprisonment as the same notional starting point in respect of Counts 3 and 4, when Count 4, as the more serious offence of manufacturing, ought, on ordinary principles, to have attracted the highest starting point of all. He very properly conceded that the starting point on Count 4 could have been in the region of 36 years’ imprisonment.

Ground 1 and Ground 4: totality

18.Mr Percy submitted that since all the counts were committed in the course of a single episode, the “one transaction” rule would apply. The judge should in the circumstances have ordered the individual sentences to run wholly concurrently with each other, resulting in an overall starting point of 36 years’ imprisonment. Upon the appellant’s timely pleas of guilty, the ultimate total sentence should have been 24 years’ imprisonment.

The respondent’s submissions

19.Ms Rosa Lo, on behalf of the respondent, began her submissions by arguing that, while the sentence was “on the high side”, it was not manifestly excessive when measured against the appellant’s overall criminality, which she gauged by his role as custodian of the drugs and the manufacturing operation, the size of the enterprise, the enormous quantities of dangerous drugs and their value and the multiplicity of different dangerous drugs. However, as the argument developed, she was minded to concede, to her credit, that the sentence was manifestly excessive.

20.The basis of Ms Lo’s concession was three-fold. Firstly, the judge ought to have treated the drugs in Counts 2 and 3 together for sentencing purposes in accordance with established sentencing practice. Had she done so, the quantity in Count 2 would not have made any material difference to the relevant sentencing bracket under Abdallah for Count 3, even allowing for the fact that there were different kinds of dangerous drugs seized in Count 3. Although the judge’s individual starting points in respect of Counts 2 and 3 were correct (which Mr Percy also accepted), the making of 4 years on Count 3 consecutive to the sentence of 16 years 10 months’ imprisonment on Count 2, thus resulting in 20 years and 10 months’ imprisonment after plea on Counts 2 and 3 meant that the starting point for those two offences alone would have been 31 years and 3 months’ imprisonment. Yet, such a starting point would have been lower than the starting point in respect of Count 3 had it stood alone, namely 33 years’ imprisonment. Clearly, the judge’s approach and arithmetic had miscarried.

21.Secondly, by adopting a starting point of 33 years’ imprisonment in respect of Count 4 for manufacturing, which was the same starting point taken in respect of Count 3 for trafficking, the judge had failed to acknowledge the generally accepted and applied principle that “the sentence for ‘drug manufacturing’ offences must be substantially higher than that for ‘trafficking’ in the same amount of drugs”: see HKSAR v Cheng Chi Wai[17].

22.Thirdly, Ms Lo acknowledged that the overall starting point in respect of all three counts, namely 40 years and 3 months’ imprisonment was, in the circumstances, manifestly excessive.

Discussion

23.We are grateful to both counsel for their realistic submissions and for the concessions, which each properly made. It seems to us that the judge’s sentencing exercise miscarried in a number of material ways, which will necessarily require us to re-sentence the appellant. Before we do so, however, it is worth making some general observations about sentencing in cases such as this, which may be of assistance to judges when dealing with large manufacturing and trafficking operations where the offences are inextricably linked.

24.Firstly, it is vitally important that judges retain some overall perspective when dealing with the trafficking in very large quantities of dangerous drugs, particularly when the trafficking is associated with manufacturing dangerous drugs, otherwise an exercise in arithmetic alone where there are several offences may lead judges into error and result in distorted and extremely long sentences. That is what we think has happened in the present case, where the notional sentence after trial, before the one-third discount for plea was given, would have been (by extrapolating the starting point from the resulting figure of 26 years and 10 months) no less than 40 years and 3 months’ imprisonment. Such a sentence, had it been passed after trial, would have been the longest sentence ever passed in connection with dangerous drugs in the history of the criminal law in Hong Kong; the one exception being the life sentence passed at first instance in R v Ng Muk Kam[18], which sentence was subsequently overturned on appeal.

25.In the recent case of Cheng Chi Wai, a different division of this Court conducted an examination of sentences passed in cases of trafficking in very large quantities of dangerous drugs and found that “even if the quantity of drugs involved was massive, the starting point never exceeded 35 years”[19]. The Court made reference to Ng Muk Kam, where the trial judge’s attempt to impose a sentence of life imprisonment on a defendant involved “in a major way” (albeit not the mastermind or chief financier) in trafficking in 306 kilogrammes of salts of esters of morphine, with a street value of some HK$146 million, was varied by the Court of Appeal to 35 years’ imprisonment. The Court also noted another case[20], in which the appeal had not yet been determined at the time Cheng Chi Wai was heard, where the defendant had been sentenced after trial to 37 years’ imprisonment for organising the trafficking of 34 kilogrammes of “Ice” across the border by sea into Hong Kong. This Court in HKSAR v Lee Ming Ho[21] has since heard and determined that appeal and reduced the sentence to 33 years’ imprisonment, albeit using 31 years’ imprisonment as its base starting point before the addition of aggravating features.

26.Given the remarks of the Court in Cheng Chi Wai in 2021, which have been confirmed by subsequent research on the subject conducted by the respondent in Lee Ming Ho in 2023 and by Ms Lo herself in the present case, we think we should state that realistically and for all practical purposes, there is a prevailing sentencing limit for the offence of trafficking in dangerous drugs, which is 35 years’ imprisonment after trial. We would not be prepared to say that a sentence must never exceed such a figure: if we did, we might quickly regret doing so, and we must always acknowledge that the maximum sentence for the offence prescribed by the legislature is life imprisonment. Factors such as the sheer enormity of the quantity of dangerous drugs concerned, the very high position of the defendant responsible for the offence and its financing, the defendant’s antecedents, as well as other relevant factors aggravating the offence, may cause judges in the future to look beyond that limit. However, such exceptional circumstances apart, it is the experience of the courts of this jurisdiction in sentencing under the various guidelines, which have existed for trafficking in dangerous drugs over more than four decades, that 35 years imprisonment after trial is in reality likely to be the longest sentence that will be approved by this Court.

27.In making this statement, we are aware of only one surviving outlier, heard more than a decade ago, namely HKSAR v Rivas & Others[22], where, in respect of three (out of six) defendants, starting points of 37 and 38 years’ imprisonment were taken by a judge at first instance. The quantity of cocaine being trafficked by six foreign nationals, who, as the judge said, came to Hong Kong in order to “play their part in this major cocaine distribution centre located in the suburbs of Tuen Mun”, was 422.5 kilogrammes of cocaine narcotic, with a street value of some US$65 million. This ranks as the highest extant starting point ever adopted in Hong Kong for trafficking in dangerous drugs: it was, however, never the subject of appeal, five of the six defendants having pleaded guilty and received a one-third discount on their sentences. Although the case serves as a reminder that the sentencing ceiling of which we have spoken is not impenetrable, the fact remains that 35 years imprisonment is the highest sentence after trial ever upheld on appeal for the offence of trafficking in dangerous drugs.

28.Secondly, when it comes to the manufacturing of dangerous drugs, it has long been held in this jurisdiction that the offence of manufacturing is to be regarded even more seriously than the offence of trafficking. This was first made clear by this Court more than 40 years ago in R v Wong Chun-ping & Others[23], and it has been a consistent theme of sentencing practice in Hong Kong ever since: see, for example, Cheung Wai Kwong[24]; HKSAR v Tse Kwan Wai Barros & Others[25]; and Cheng Chi Wai[26]. That is because the amount of drugs found in the premises where manufacturing is taking place will invariably be a small part, perhaps only a fraction, of the drugs actually manufactured and the capacity of the operation. In the present case, the judge adopted a starting point for manufacturing, which was the same as the starting point for trafficking in the drugs found in the premises, namely 33 years’ imprisonment. That cannot, with respect, be correct as a matter of principle. The raw materials found, namely 19,061.33 grammes of cocaine hydrochloride and 1.22 kilogrammes of sodium bicarbonate, would in the future have yielded an enormous quantity of cocaine base for commercial trafficking, and the enterprise was clearly a continuing one.

29.In Cheng Chi Wai, Yeung VP on behalf of the Court held, in the context of a discussion about the offence of manufacturing of dangerous drugs, that[27]:

“The quantity of drugs seized at a drug-manufacturing workshop must be one of the relevant factors affecting sentencing as the quantity of drugs seized shows, to some extent, the size and productivity of the manufacturing workshop, and it also reflects the seriousness of the offence.

However, apart from the quantity of drugs seized, the length of time for which the drug-manufacturing workshop has existed and operated, its scale and productivity, the quantity and standard of drug-manufacturing paraphernalia, the extent to which the defendant participated in the drug-manufacturing and the role he played in the matter are all important factors to be taken into account in sentencing.”

30.Pertinent to the particular case before us, Yeung VP went on to say[28]:

“This Court cannot ignore the fact that the purpose of setting up a large-scale and productive drug-manufacturing workshop cannot be for manufacturing a small quantity of drugs just once. Over a long period of operation, the quantity of drugs that these drug-manufacturing workshops can produce must be extremely large and certainly would far exceed the quantity of drugs seized on the spot at the workshops. The sentence must therefore reflect the seriousness of these offences. Even if the quantity of drugs seized on the spot is not significant, the sentence for ‘drug-manufacturing’ offences must be substantially higher than that for ‘trafficking’ in the same amount of drugs.

When it comes to large-scale, productive and long-running drug-manufacturing workshop, where the defendant plays an active and important role, and where an exceptionally large amount of drugs is seized, the appropriate starting point should even exceed 30 years’ imprisonment to reflect the seriousness of the offence.”

31.We also note that the Court in Cheng Chi Wai articulated a principle in relation to sentencing for manufacturing dangerous drugs, which we should address. The Court said[29]:

“This Court however agrees that no matter how serious the offence is, there should nevertheless be an upper limit in terms of sentencing, and this upper limit should only be imposed on the most serious category of the same offence.”

We must, as with the offence of trafficking in dangerous drugs, bear in mind that the maximum sentence for this offence is also life imprisonment. Nevertheless, unless the capacity of the manufacturing enterprise is shown to be on an industrial scale, with massive quantities of dangerous drugs being produced, or capable of being produced, for consumption both locally and abroad, we consider that a realistic upper limit for the offence of manufacturing dangerous drugs, borne out of the practical experience of our courts over the past four decades, should be 38 years’ imprisonment.

32.Thirdly, the mechanism of partly consecutive, partly concurrent sentencing is a very useful tool in the armoury of any court, since it enables the sentencer to give effect to circumstances (reflected in other charges or counts) which necessarily add to the defendant’s criminality, whilst, at the same time, ensuring that the total sentence is not excessive. However, caution should be exercised lest the imposition of a consecutive sentence, which in itself may be a perfectly acceptable sentence for the individual offence concerned, or a partly consecutive element of that sentence, results in an overall sentence that is too great for the overall criminality of the defendant.

33.In R v Kastercum[30], Lord Widgery CJ described the “well-known working principle” that:

“…where several offences are tried together and arise out of the same transaction, it is a good working rule that the sentences imposed for those offences should be made concurrent. The reason for that is because if a man is charged with several serious offences arising out of the same situation and consecutive sentences are imposed, the total very often proves to be much too great for the incident in question. That is only an ordinary working rule; it is perfectly open to a trial judge in a case such as the present to approach this in one of two ways. If he thinks that the assault on the police officer is really part and parcel of the original offence and is to be treated as an aggravation of the original offence, he can reflect it in the sentence for the original offence. If he does that, it is logical and right that any separate sentence for the assault should be made concurrent. On the other hand, and, as this Court thinks, a better course, in cases where the offender assaults the police in an effort to escape, the sentence for the principal offence can be fixed independently of the assault on the constable, and the assault on the constable can be dealt with by a separate and consecutive sentence.”

The learned authors of Sentencing in Hong Kong have said of this principle, however, that[31]:

“This ‘ordinary working rule’ may need to yield if offences which occur as part of a single transaction differ markedly. Examples of this abound, often grounded in common sense.”

34.We respectfully agree that whether a judge looks at a series of different offences as a single transaction, or whether and to what extent some of the offences add to the defendant’s criminality on the principal offence, is a matter of common sense. We also accept that it may not often make any practical difference whether the judge reflects the fact of another offence or offences in the sentence for the principal offence, making all other sentence(s) concurrent, or whether he adds a consecutive element for the other offence(s) to the principal offence; provided the judge has a careful eye to overall totality. Common sense and an overall appreciation of the criminality involved ought to dictate which mechanism the judge employs.

35.If we apply these three considerations to the case before us, we are of the view that this was a course of serious criminal conduct, all of which was obviously inter-related, and all of which occurred on the same day, at the same time and in essentially the same place. It was a dangerous drugs manufacturing operation, in which the principal offence particularised was Count 4, while the drugs to be trafficked were particularised in Counts 2 and 3. The facts of this particular case called for an assessment of the gravity of the most serious count, namely Count 4, by reference, among other things, to the quantities of dangerous drugs in Counts 2 and 3. Since the quantities of dangerous drugs in Counts 2 and 3 were to be taken into account in assessing the appellant’s criminality on Count 4, it was important that the making of partly consecutive sentences did not inflate the overall sentence when using the same quantity of dangerous drugs to arrive at both the starting point for trafficking and the starting point for manufacturing. The better and safer course, given that Counts 2 and 3 obviously derived from, and were inextricably linked with, Count 4, was to make all sentences concurrent.

36.In any event, by the application of ordinary principles, we agree with Mr Percy that the dangerous drugs particularised in Counts 2 and 3 ought to have been dealt with as though they had been found together and formed one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs: see Lam Chi Wa[32]. After all, it was only a matter of minutes after the drugs in Count 2 were taken out of the premises that the police discovered the other drugs in Count 3 from which they had obviously been drawn, otherwise they would all have been found together as one batch of dangerous drugs. In our judgment, common sense and sentencing principle dictate that the two counts be treated together for sentencing purposes. Since the quantities of dangerous drugs in Count 3 fell within the last category of the guidelines in Abdallah, namely “Over 15,000 g – At the sentencer’s discretion”, the quantity in Count 2, had it been added to the quantity in Count 3, would have made no appreciable difference to the sentence on Count 3. Accordingly, there was no warrant for any consecutive element as between the two counts.

37.We accept the judge’s individual starting points for the quantities concerned of 25 years and 3 months’ imprisonment on Count 2, and 33 years’ imprisonment on Count 3, but we would, in the circumstances, have ordered both sentences to run wholly concurrently with each other, thereby making 22 years’ imprisonment after discount for plea.

38.We also agree with Ms Lo that the judge’s application of the partly consecutive, partly concurrent mechanism clearly miscarried when applied to Counts 2 and 3, since the ordering of 4 years of the sentence on Count 3 to run consecutively to the sentence on Count 2, thus making 20 years and 10 months’ imprisonment for the two counts, actually resulted in a sentence that was less than if Count 3 had stood alone and warranted 22 years’ imprisonment after plea. This exemplifies the hazard and, sometimes, distortion of using the part consecutive, part concurrent approach where very long sentences for essentially the same offences are concerned.

39.On Count 4, we accept the judge’s finding that “as far as the manufacturing is concerned, it was not just a one-off operation. It was plainly an operation that had been going on for some time. And even considering the (appellant’s) admission that he was only in the flat for a couple of weeks, the amount that was generated was not only the amount found inside the flat by the police at the time”[33]. Later, the judge described the scale of manufacturing, as a “fairly large operation and capable of producing large amounts of drugs”[34]. This was perhaps something of an understatement but, to be fair to the judge, the Summary of Facts did not assist her with any scientific determination of the scale and capacity of the manufacturing operation.

40.Given that the process of “cracking” cocaine was described in the Summary of Facts as dissolving the starting materials of cocaine hydrochloride and sodium bicarbonate in water, before heating and then cooling them to form a precipitation, we think it ought to have been possible for an expert to say how much cocaine in smokeable form would have been created. The judge was thus left with the other evidence and the commercial value of the dangerous drugs found, which she understandably described as “staggering”[35]. This was a clearly a very sizeable operation, in respect of premises for which the appellant had held the key, on his own admission, for about 3 months[36]. Moreover, the presence of cocaine hydrochloride and over a kilogramme of sodium bicarbonate suggested that the enterprise was obviously a continuing one.

41.We have already said, and Mr Percy has properly conceded as much, that the adoption of the same starting point of 33 years imprisonment for manufacturing the dangerous drugs on Count 4 as for trafficking in dangerous drugs on Count 3 was wrong in principle. Serious though the trafficking offences were, the manufacturing offence was the more serious and plainly warranted a higher starting point, in accordance with authority.

42.In our judgment, we would have assessed the starting point in respect of Count 4 at 36 years’ imprisonment. This represents a higher starting point than the 33 years taken by the judge but reflects the capacity of the manufacturing operation, the length of time it had been in operation, the appellant’s significant role in the enterprise, the vast quantities of dangerous drugs produced and the enormous profits that would have been generated. The sentence after a timely plea to Count 4 should then have been 24 years’ imprisonment.

43.Realistically, in assessing the size of the operation for sentencing purposes, it is inevitable that a sentencing court must again take into account the quantities of dangerous drugs actually produced and trafficked and their value, where that evidence is available. This is all part of an assessment of the operational capacity of the manufacturing enterprise. In this particular enterprise, the appellant played a significant role in manufacturing vast quantities of dangerous drugs for trafficking, and it is clear that he must have intended to continue his manufacturing and trafficking operations. In these circumstances, and in accordance with the above principles, we think the approach least likely to lead to an inflated or distorted result by factoring the same considerations into different counts of trafficking and manufacturing is to order all sentences to run concurrently.

Disposition

44.Accordingly, it was for these reasons that we allowed the appeal against sentence. We order the sentence after plea on Count 4 of 24 years’ imprisonment to run concurrently with the concurrent sentences after plea on Counts 2 and 3 of 22 years’ imprisonment, thereby making 24 years’ imprisonment in all. The sentence will thus be reduced from 26 years and 10 months’ imprisonment (indicative of an overall starting point of 40 years and 3 months’ imprisonment) to 24 years’ imprisonment (indicative of an overall starting point of 36 years’ imprisonment).

Ms Rosa Lo SPP, of the Department of Justice, for the Respondent

Mr Duncan Percy, instructed by Rita Law & Co., assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Appellant