HKSAR v. Rai Shiva

HCCC229/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 229 OF 2009

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

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COURT:  Rai Shiva, stand up.  You have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty to a charge of robbery in the Magistrates’ Court. 

The robbery was particularly serious.  Late at night, on 15 February this year, you flagged down a taxi in Battery Street, Yau Ma Tei, and boarded it in the rear seat.  You told the taxi driver to take you to Tsim Sha Tsui.  However, after a short distance you told the driver to stop.  You then took out a hammer and struck the taxi driver over the head with it, declaring that it was a robbery.

Fortunately, despite the blow to his head, the taxi driver was able to shout for help into the taxi’s console.  In the meantime you were able to take a $180 from his shirt pocket and flee.  The taxi driver was taken to hospital and found to have sustained a 3 cm laceration on his scalp, for which he received four sutures.

To strike the taxi driver over the head with a hammer was a highly dangerous thing to do.  It is extremely fortunate that the taxi driver’s injuries were not more serious.  Having seen the hammer, it is apparent to me that it is not a light hammer.  It could easily have caused a fracture to the driver’s skull.  In the event, it did cause substantial bleeding.

There are a number of features that make this offence particularly serious.  It was a robbery of a taxi driver late at night, a time when taxi drivers are particularly vulnerable.  It was compounded by the fact that you hit the driver over the head with the hammer.  A substantial term of imprisonment is inevitable. 

In the case of Secretary for Justice v Ma Ping Wah (Criminal Appeal Application for Review No. 1/2000), the Court of Appeal has said that the usual starting point where it is established that a deliberate blow to the head with a weapon capable of causing injury to the brain has been struck by a robber should be no less than 8 years’ imprisonment.  In view of the aggravating feature that this was an attack on a taxi driver late at night, in my view the appropriate starting point in this case is 9 years’ imprisonment.               

I have listened to all that Mrs Panesar has said on your behalf and to the letters that have been read to me expressing your remorse.  I have been told that the offence was committed while you were still suffering from some of the after-effects of abusing cough medicine.  That cannot provide any excuse for your actions.    This was clearly not an offence committed on the spur of the moment.  It must have involved some premeditation as you took the hammer with you into the taxi. 

It is tragic that a young man of 20 years of age like you should commit a crime as serious as this.  However, I am not persuaded that in a case as serious as this that your age should result in any discount from the starting point I have referred to.  Taxi drivers must be protected from this sort of conduct. 

I am satisfied that the appropriate discount in this case is one-third, which reflects your plea of guilty and your remorse.  I sentence you to 6 years’ imprisonment.