Phillip Stanley Joseph Garthwaite v. The Queen

CACC000566/1977

Coram: Briggs, C.J.

Date of Judgment: 16th July, 1977.

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant pleaded guilty to various offences of forgery, uttering a forged document and obtaining certain goods on a forged document. The appellant used a forged American Express Card and went to three jewellers in Kowloon and obtained certain jewellery from them. He also, again using the same forged American Express Card, obtained a camera from a photographic shop. And, finally, he attempted to buy an air ticket to San Francisco at Kai Tak Airport, again producing the forged American Express Card. The total value of the goods in cash which he obtained by these dishonest means was over $14,000.

2. The magistrate sentenced the appellant to a total of three years' imprisonment. In so doing, he appears to have taken into consideration the fact that the appellant admitted that he had four previous convictions recorded against him in the United Kingdom. The magistrate stated that he considered the offences to be serious and that the three years' imprisonment was to operate as a deterrent sentence.

3. The magistrate does not seem to have been aware that all the goods which were illegally obtained have been recovered, so there has been no loss to the traders. Further, as to the previous convictions, there were four in number, three were over twenty years ago and one was three years ago and none are, in nature, similar to the present offences. In my view, they should have been totally ignored.

4. Finally, it is not desirable that the first sentence of imprisonment passed on an offender should be a deterrent sentence in the sense of a general deterrent to deter other persons from behaving as this appellant did.

5. In those circumstances, I think justice would best be done if the overall sentence of three years is reduced to two years. So the order that I will make is that a sentence of two years should be substituted for that of eighteen months on each of the charges to which the appellant pleaded guilty, but that all these sentences will be concurrent and to date from the date of his conviction.

Representation:

A. Huggins (D.L.A.) for appellant.

Hindle for the Crown/Respondent.