Read the full judgment text of CACC 000341/1997 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment was delivered on 24 October 1997 before Mayo JA, Keith J, Yeung J.
Criminal law – sentencing – robbery – attempted robbery – bank robberies – threats by written note – threats of firearm and bomb – guilty plea discount – totality principle – concurrent sentences – manifestly excessive – leave to appeal against sentence. The applicant pleaded guilty to one count of attempted robbery and three counts of robbery of banks committed over approximately one month. His modus operandi was to hand tellers a slip of paper in Chinese demanding HK$200,000, on some occasions implying he had a firearm and on others threatening a bomb. Amounts obtained were HK$6,400, HK$44,000 and HK$11,950. He was 20 years old with prior robbery convictions and claimed he acted in desperation to help his fiancée pay gambling debts. The sentencing judge (Gall J) adopted starting points of 11 years (count 4, bomb), 8 years (count 3, firearm), 6 years (count 2, firearm) and 10 years (count 1, bomb, attempted), reduced each to reflect the guilty plea to 7, 5, 4 and 6 years respectively, and ordered all sentences to run concurrently to reflect the totality principle, giving a total of 7 years' imprisonment. Whether the sentences were manifestly excessive or wrong in principle – held: no – robbery of banks using threats, including bomb threats, is serious; differentiation of sentences according to the nature of the threat was principled; the guilty plea reductions and the concurrent order properly applied the totality principle; the applicant's record and the limited mitigation did not warrant a lesser sentence. A medical condition raised for the first time on the application for leave to appeal was not a matter to which the court could give weight. Application for leave to appeal against sentence dismissed.
Legal issues: Whether sentences for multiple bank robberies were manifestly excessive or wrong in principle
Outcome: Application for leave to appeal against sentence dismissed