HKSAR v. Wong Wai Hon
Read the full judgment text of DCCC 1022/2025 on BabelCite. This District Court judgment was delivered on 14 January 2026.
1. The 2 nd defendant has pleaded guilty to a single charge of burglary, contrary to Section 11(1)(b) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance, the offence occurring on 1 January 2025 at a premises in Sham Shui Po where some $10,000 was stolen by the 2 nd defendant.
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DCCC 1022/2025 [2026] HKDC 97 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO 1022 OF 2025 ________________________
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________________________ REASONS FOR SENTENCE ________________________ 1.The 2nd defendant has pleaded guilty to a single charge of burglary, contrary to Section 11(1)(b) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance, the offence occurring on 1 January 2025 at a premises in Sham Shui Po where some $10,000 was stolen by the 2nd defendant. 2.The premises in question are described as the Shan An Fruit Store which is at the ground floor of a building in Sham Shui Po in Hong Kong. It is a store that had two entrances, one facing Ki Lung Street, the other facing Yen Chow Street, both entrances were covered by roller shutters. Neither of those shutters were locked at the material time, this was in order to facilitate the delivery of vegetables to the store. 3.The store was left around about 10 pm on 31 December 2024 by the 1st prosecution witness. At that time, a total of two bags which contained some $10,000 of cash were inside a polyfoam bag within the store. When PW1 left the store, he did not lock the roller shutter gate. When he came back the next morning at 8:15 am, he found that the cash had been stolen and then that caused him to review the CCTV footage of the store. 4.The CCTV footage at the store revealed that initially a man had delivered vegetables to the store and then used the polyfoam cover to cover the $10,000 stolen property and then later on in that morning at about 5:40 am, the 2nd defendant was captured lifting up the roller shutter at one of the entrances and entering the store. He then searched the store and was seen to flee towards Yen Chow Street. 5.It is clear at that time the 2nd defendant had taken the $10,000 in cash that was in the store as a result of information provided to him by the man described as “male A” and in fact in a later video-recorded interview the 2nd defendant admitted that. 6.This is a clear and simple case of burglary by the 2nd defendant entering an unsecured building, in a sense secured by the roller shutters but not by any locking of the roller shutters and then taking property belonging to another inside the store. 7.Dealing with the 2nd defendant’s background, he is now aged 41. He is a Hong Kong-born person, received education in Hong Kong only up to Form 2 level. At the time of his arrest he was unemployed. He was described as an addict of methamphetamine at the time of his arrest but has been incarcerated for a year now and is no longer suffering, he says, from that addiction. 8.The 2nd defendant has a number of previous convictions for offences of dishonesty dating back to 2018, cases of theft and by way of pick-pocketing and ordinary theft. The 2nd defendant does have one previous offence of burglary in 2019 for which he was sentenced to a sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment. I am told by the defence in submission that that case of burglary was a case in which he entered an area in a shop that he was not permitted to go into and took a mobile phone. It is said to be not a conventional burglary in the normal sense and that is reflected in the sentence that was imposed. That is relevant to how the court approaches the question of whether any aggravating factor exists within this burglary. 9.Now dealing to the approach to sentence, the burglary in question is admitted to be a burglary of a non-domestic premises. That would normally attract a starting point for sentence of 2½ years’ imprisonment were there no other aggravating or mitigating factors. That could be seen from the case of The Attorney General v Lui Kam Chi [1993] 1 HKC 215. This starting point encompasses some degree of planning and premeditation. 10.The current case involves a straightforward burglary, not involving the use of tools, screwdrivers or gloves or the like and not involving the use of force to enter the premises. There is a degree of planning but the case is not sophisticated. The property stolen is $10,000 in cash. Whilst a substantial amount of money, the value does not increase or work as an aggravating factor in this case. No one was present in the premises at the time. 11.None of the conventional basis or aggravating factors exist in this case, save for the fact the 2nd defendant has one similar criminal record from 2019. I note the fact that in that case the 2nd defendant received a sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment which is suggestive of the fact that it was what may be described as a technical form of burglary. Having regard to that and given that the case dates back to 2019, I do not consider I will consider that particular previous conviction to be an aggravating factor in this case. 12.As there are no other aggravating or mitigating factors in the case, I will take the starting point to be one of 30 months’ imprisonment, 2½ years. The 2nd defendant is entitled in this case, I understand, to a full one-third discount from that figure so the sentence of imprisonment that will be imposed in this case is one of 20 months’ imprisonment.
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