The Queen v. Man Tak Sum

CACC000060/1988

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

BETWEEN

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Coram: Fuad, V.-P., Hunter, J. A. & Macdougall, J.

Date of Hearing: 24th June 1988

Date of Judgment: 24th June 1988

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J U D G M E N T

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Fuad, V,-P. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. The Applicant, Man Tak Sum, was convicted of robbery by His Honour Judge Sharwood in the District Court on 1st February 1988 and sentenced to 2½ years' imprisonment. He now seeks leave to appeal against his conviction.

2. The facts upon which the prosecution was founded were as follows. During the afternoon of 17th September 1987 a woman was returning to her home in Battery Street, Yaumati. A man got into the lift with her. He was wearing a white T-shirt, yellow shorts and rubber sandals. The man told the woman to give him all her valuables. There was a struggle. Her gold necklace was snatched from her neck and fell to the floor of the lift but was not taken away. However, the man made off with her jade pendant. The man got out of the lift somewhere between the 5th and 7th floors. The woman took the lift to the ground floor and made a report to the watchman who immediately locked the front and rear doors to the block of flats. There was no other way in or out of the building except via the roof.

3. The police were called. An auxiliary police officer saw a man dressed in the manner described by the victim climbing down the water pipe between the 7th and 8th floors. This pipe could be reached from the roof. The man jumped from the 4th to the 3rd floor, then climbed a wall and swung himself to the next building using the wires of a television aerial to do so. The police officer lost sight of the man for a moment but saw him again moving along a striped awning on the building next door. The police officer ran to that building and went into a flat which looked down on to the awning where he saw the man crouching upon it. On arrest the police officer asked the Applicant whether he had snatched a necklace from a woman in the adjacent building and he replied that he had already thrown it back to her. After caution he added nothing.

4. Another police officer saw the Applicant on the awning and witnessed the arrest.

5. The Applicant had had an accident the year before and the top joints of all the fingers of his right hand had to be amputated. He told the Court in his evidence that he had not been arrested on the awning but in Battery Street on his way to catch a bus. He had gone to the area to visit a friend but had not found him. He was unable to give the address of his friend. He said that he was "not very sober" having taken tranquilizers at home.

6. In accepting the evidence of the police prosecution witnesses and rejecting the Applicant's disability the judge, in his full and careful Reasons for Verdict, took into account the Applicant's disability and was nevertheless satisfied that he was the robber and that he was caught on the awning of the building next door, despite the fact that the victim herself had been unable to identify him at an identification parade.

7. The Conviction is unassailable and the application is dismissed.

Representation:

Defendant/Applicant in person.

Miss L.M.A. Shine (Crown Prosecutor) for the Crown.