HKSAR v. Lee Wai Keung

HCCC20/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 20 OF 2009

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:  Accused, can you stand up.  You have been convicted by the jury of attempted murder.  This offence is based on your attempt to murder the victim by throwing her out of a window on the 20th floor.  In sentencing you for it I will ignore the wounds which you have inflicted on the victim.  This is because the wounding with intent count was brought in the alternative to the attempted murder count, not in addition to it.  So I will sentence you solely on the basis of the attempt to murder the victim by throwing her out of the window.

I have taken into account everything urged by your counsel on your behalf.  I will treat the background of your relationship with the victim and the trouble she has caused you and your family as mitigation from the start rather than arrive at a starting point without taking that mitigation into account and then discounting it for that mitigation. I will take the mitigation into account from the start.  I will arrive at the appropriate sentence in that way.

The maximum sentence for this offence is life imprisonment.  That is reserved for cases in the worst category.  This case is not in the worst category, but it is very serious.  What you did to the victim was prolonged and terrifying.  She obviously suffered anguish which was very great indeed - both in its intensity and its duration.  In one of the cases referred to by your counsel, the case of Yip Chu Sum, the Court of Appeal said this:

“The offence of attempted murder is one for which no sentencing guidelines exist.  That should come as no surprise, because the circumstances of that offence will vary considerably from case to case.  For this reason, too, the citation of earlier cases which establish no principle or guideline are frequently of limited use in an appeal against sentence.”  

Nevertheless, as the Court of Appeal went on to indicate, it can sometimes be of some use to look at other cases.  Sometimes there are similarities between the case in which a judge has to pass sentence and other cases, so that the previous sentences can provide some guidance.  I have considered the sentence in Yip’s case and the sentences in the other cases mentioned by the Court of Appeal in Yip’s case.  

Another case referred to by your counsel is the case of Tang Kwok Wai. 

All things considered, I have come to the conclusion that the appropriate sentence for you is one of 13 years’ imprisonment.  I sentence you to 13 years’ imprisonment.