Read the full judgment text of CACC 000354/1989 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment was delivered on 7 March 1990 before Silke, V.-P., Power & Macdougall, JJ.A..
Criminal law – sentencing – multiple lift robberies – lone female victims – use of paper cutter – youth of offender – guilty plea – immediate confessions to police – discount – starting point – totality of sentence – appeal against sentence. The applicant, aged 20–21, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of robbery committed between September and December 1988 in Kowloon housing estates. The offences involved lift robberies of lone females, a paper cutter being used to intimidate and to cause minor injuries in two cases. Upon arrest after the final robbery, the applicant made full confessions to the police, leading to the discovery of many of the offences and supporting evidence. He had previous convictions including breach of probation, common assault, occasioning actual bodily harm, and drug offences (including trafficking), and was serving a Drug Addiction Treatment Centre sentence at the time of sentencing. He was also a drug addict from age 16 and had been involved in triad activities from age 15. The trial judge imposed 9 years' imprisonment on each of the 12 counts concurrent and activated a 4 months' suspended sentence. The applicant sought leave to appeal against sentence on grounds that the starting point of in excess of 12 years after trial was too high, that insufficient discount was given for the guilty pleas combined with the immediate confessions, and that insufficient weight was given to his youth. The Court of Appeal, following The Queen v. Kwok Man Hung and The Queen v. Chan Chi Fai, held that in a multiplicity of robberies the youth of offenders is not a strong mitigating factor and the public interest must be served over individual interests. The court considered the offences serious but not the most serious form of robbery, and concluded that a starting point in the region of 10 years after trial, and a total sentence on plea of 7 years' imprisonment, would have been appropriate. Leave was granted, the hearing was treated as the appeal, and the sentences on each of the 12 counts were reduced from 9 years to 7 years' imprisonment, to run concurrently. No retrial was ordered.
Legal issues: Whether starting point of in excess of 12 years for multiple robberies was too high · Whether sufficient discount was given for guilty pleas combined with immediate confessions · Whether youth of the offender is a strong mitigating factor in multiple robbery cases
Outcome: Leave to appeal granted; appeal treated as the hearing of the appeal; sentences on each of the 12 counts reduced from 9 years to 7 years' imprisonment, to run concurrently.
Cited by 1 case