The Queen v. Sit Cheung Biu

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1987 No. 36
(Criminal)

BETWEEN

THE QUEEN

and

SIT CHEUNG-BIU

Coram: Roberts, C.J. Silke, J.A. & Garcia J.

Date: 19th March 1987

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J U D G M E N T

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Roberts, C.J. -

1. The applicant, who pleaded guilty to two charges of obtaining property ay deception and one charge of forgery of a valuable security, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment on each count, the sentences to run concurrently.

2. In addition the Judge activated a sentence of six months’ I imprisonment, suspended for two years, which had been imposed on the applicant, for a similar offence of obtaining property August 1985.

3. The applicant was also convicted of two further offences obtaining property by deception on 12th November, 1985, for which he was sentenced to four and six months' imprisonment concurrently, and of the same offence on 28th November 1985, for which he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment to run consecutively to the two sentences imposed on 12th November. He thus came before the court in these proceedings with four previous convictions of precisely the same nature.

4. The first charge related to the obtaining by the applicant of. property, by a false representation that he had deposited $71,000 cash in a savings account, which was untrue. As a result of this representation, a Mr. Tang supplied goods to the value of $19,500, for which he has never received payment.

5. The second and third charges, which were based on incidents which took place some weeks later, involved a cheque presented by the defendant which was subsequently dishonoured, though in this instance, the property obtained by virtue of it was recovered.

6. We were referred to a number of cases by Mr. Tang, who argued very persuasively on behalf of the applicant, which indicated that, in general, four years imprisonment for offences of this kind is somewhat higher than has been the usual level adopted by the courts.

7. Taking into account those cases, we feel that the Judge’s starting point of four years was higher than it should have been. However, it appears to us, also, that the Judge was over generous in the deduction of twelve months, which the allowed to the applicant for his plea of guilty. This was offered at a late stage, after the main prosecution witnesses had testified.

8. Furthermore, the applicant had been convicted within the previous nine months, of no less than four offences of the same kind. A deduction of six months’ for the very late plea of guilty would have been a sufficient recognition of it. This would have reduced the sentence for the three charges to2½ years. However this Court should only interfere with a sentence if we regard it as manifestly excessive. Although we regard three years as on the high side, we cannot say that it is so manifestly excessive that we should interfere with it.

9. It was not submitted that the Judge was wrong to activate the suspended sentence of six months. For these reasons we do not think that we should interfere with the sentences imposer and the application is dismissed.

Mr. Ronald Tang (D.L.A.) for Appellant

Mr. I.G. Cross, Ag. Sen. Asst. Crown Prosecutor with Mr. C.K. Wong, Crown Counsel, for Respondent/Crown Prosecutor.