HKSAR v. Chiu Chung Yuen
Read the full judgment text of CACC 416/2002 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment was delivered on 22 October 2003.
1 This applicant committed seven robberies between 26 December 2001 and 29 January 2002, on which latter date he was arrested. He was charged with seven offences and pleaded guilty in the magistrate's court on 24 May 2002, and was committed then for sentence to the High Court.
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CACC000416/2002 CACC 416/2002 IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 416 OF 2002 (ON APPEAL FROM HCCC 186 OF 2002) ______________
______________ Coram: Hon Ma CJHC and Stock JA in Court Date of Hearing: 22 October 2003 Date of Judgment: 22 October 2003 _______________ J U D G M E N T _______________ Hon Stock JA (giving the judgment of the Court): 1This applicant committed seven robberies between 26 December 2001 and 29 January 2002, on which latter date he was arrested. He was charged with seven offences and pleaded guilty in the magistrate's court on 24 May 2002, and was committed then for sentence to the High Court. 2Each offence was a robbery of a prostitute operating a one-woman brothel. The applicant posed as a customer and, in each case, he flourished a cutter with which he threatened the victim and from whom he stole sums of money. In one case, he placed his arm round the neck of his victim; in two others he covered the victims' mouth with his hand; and in two instances he tied his victims' hands and legs. Immediately after the last incident the police were alerted and the applicant was arrested in the vicinity that day. 3The applicant was sentenced by Mr Recorder Ching Y Wong SC on 30 July 2002 to a term of nine and a half years' imprisonment; four years and eight months concurrent terms in relation to the December offences, and five years in relation to the January offences, and ordered the two groups of sentences to run consecutively save as to two months deduction for the applicant's cooperation with the police. 4On 23 August 2002 the applicant lodged his notice of application for leave to appeal against sentence by which he asserted that the sentence was too heavy and that the judge had failed to recognize that he had surrendered to the police. The applicant was granted legal aid on 8 October 2002 but the legal aid certificate was discharged on 14 November 2002. By notice dated 29 November 2002 the applicant abandoned his application for leave to appeal against sentence, so that by operation of statute that application stands dismissed. 5The applicant now seeks to revive his application for leave. He says that he was not informed until the end of November that legal aid had been withdrawn and that he abandoned his application because the hearing was then but less than a week a way, namely 5 December, and that since he did not have sufficient money to instruct a lawyer he abandoned his appeal. This new application, which we must view as an application to treat the abandonment as a nullity, is dated some months later, 7 July 2003. 6This Court has consistently followed the reasoning in The Queen v Medway [1976] 1 62 Cr App R 85 on the issue of abandonment of appeals and their attempted resuscitation. An abandonment may only be treated as an nullity, as the English Court said in that judgment at page 98, where
7The applicant has not shown that his mind did not somehow go with his act of abandonment, or that he was unaware of the nature of the act which he performed. Accordingly, this application fails.
Representation: Applicant in person Mr P K Madigan SGC of the Department of Justice for the Respondent |