CRIMINAL CASE NO. 169 OF 2009
COURT: Liu Ka-lok, you have pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to two charges of robbery and have been committed to this court for sentence.
Both robberies were committed at the same convenience store last year. On the first occasion you entered the store at about 2.30 in the morning on 20 May. You took a soft drink from the freezer and brought it to the cashier, a 19-year-old female. After you had tendered a $10 coin to her and she had opened the cash register, you pointed a sharp pointed knife of about 10 inches in length at her and said: “Robbery.” In that way you obtained $1,130 in cash.
On the second occasion you entered the store at about 4.17 in the morning of 6 July. You took a pack of lemon tea from the cabinet and walked over to the cashier, a 17-year-old male. You said: “Robbery. Quickly take all money out.” He handed to you $840 in cash while you pointed at him with a hard object contained in a plastic bag which you were holding in your right hand, on which you were wearing a white glove.
I have taken into account everything urged on your behalf. You are aged 30 and able-bodied, apart from having lost the first section of the middle finger of your right hand several years ago. You are not able to rely on a good character, having on 16 March 2007 been fined $1,000 for theft, and having on 27 August 2008 been sentenced to 2 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years for theft. The only real mitigation available to you is provided by your guilty pleas.
Both of these offences involved an invasion of private premises. In the first robbery you displayed a knife. There is no evidence as to what was the object which you pointed at the cashier in the second robbery, but the only reasonable inference is that you intended that he would believe that it was or might be a weapon, and therefore complied with your demand that he produced the money.
However, in the light of this doubt I am prepared to treat the second robbery as less serious than the first robbery. In my view, the appropriate starting point for the first offence of robbery is 6 years’ imprisonment, and the second offence is 5 years’ imprisonment. Because you have pleaded guilty to each robbery, the term of 6 years will be reduced to 4 years and the term of 5 years will be reduced to 3 years and 4 months.
These were separate offences calling for separate punishment, but to make these two terms wholly consecutive would result in excessive punishment. Applying the totality principle to avoid that, I will make 1½ years of the 3 years and 4 months sentence on the 2nd charge consecutive to the 4years sentence on the 1st charge to arrive at a total sentence of 5½ years’ imprisonment, which is what I consider the appropriate total punishment in this case.
You will therefore go to prison for a total of 5½ years.