Tsigg Rag Ming v. The Queen
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CACC000710/1975 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG (APPELLATE JURISDICTION) CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 710 OF 1975 -----------------
----------------- Coram: Huggins & McMullin, JJ. Date of Judgment: 2nd October 1975. ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- Huggins, J.: 1. This is a somewhat strange case. The Appellant pleaded Guilty to seven charges of theft. He was employed by a company of share brokers. Also employed in that company were two young girls. Those two girls, without the knowledge of the Appellant, started to gamble on the stock exchange. They ordered a total of $172,000 worth of shares. They bought the shares in fictitious names and had no money to pay for them. When the market started to drop, like many others they found themselves in difficulties. Eventually the Appellant in the course of his duties came to know of what had happened. He says that, having a daughter of 14 himself, he was sorry for these girls and he wanted to help them. He might well have helped them better by a different course of action but, believing that he was doing it for the best, he then said that he would take over the shares which had been purchased, sold them and by re-investment tried to make up the value of the original shares. As perhaps was to be expected, he did not succeed. The situation was then discovered by the senior members of the firm, but the police were not immediately called in. There were negotiations with the Appellant and the two girls for reimbursement to the firm and it is conceded that if those negotiations had been successful the probability is that the police would never have been brought in. As it turned out, the negotiations broke down and the Appellant absconded to Taiwan. That was in February of 1974. He returned to Hong Kong in June of this year and was arrested at the airport. We have not been told the precise figure of what is now missing from the company's account, but it is obviously a substantial figure. 2. The learned judge took a serious view of this case as would no doubt be appropriate in most cases of misappropriation by the servant of a company. He passed sentences of two and a half years' imprisonment on each charge concurrent, but he said "It is quite clear that the offences were motivated by greed". That statement is not supported upon the appeal and, with respect, we do not think that it was justified: the Appellant's case all along has been - and it has never been contested - that his sole object was to save these two girls from the consequences of their folly. He never planned to get, and never anticipated getting, one cent for his own benefit. This Court cannot but take a serious view of any misappropriation by a servant. The Appellant was in a senior position of trust and he abused the trust which was placed in him. However, we accept that it was with the best of motives that he did what he did, although he went about things in what was in fact a criminal manner. 3. This is undoubtedly a most exceptional case and we think that justice will be done if we allow the appeal by substituting for the sentences of two and a half years' imprisonment sentences of two years' imprisonment, which will be suspended for a term of two years. 2nd October 1975 Representation: |