Chan Sik Ming v. The Queen
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CACC000774/1971 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG (APPELLATE JURISDICTION) CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 774 OF 1971 -----------------
----------------- Coram: Pickering, J. Date of Judgment: 26th November, 1971. ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- 1. The appellant pleaded guilty to three charges of robbery and two of theft. On each of the robbery charges he was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment and those sentences were ordered to run concurrently; on each of the two theft charges he was sentenced to six months imprisonment, those sentences to run concurrently with each other and concurrently with the 14 months sentences for robbery. 2. In each of the robbery offences the technique employed by the appellant was the same; that is, he entered a lift with another single individual and, after the lift door had closed, produced a knife and demanded money from that other individual. In the case of the first charge his victim was a man who had only $10, which the appellant allowed him to keep, taking the victim's wrist watch instead of money; in the second case the victim was a woman and was relieved of $100 whilst in the third incident the victim, also a woman, having very little money upon her, was forced to give the appellant her two finger rings. The watch, the subject of the 1st charge, was recovered from a mahjong school where the appellant had lost it whilst playing mahjong; the money, the subject of the second charge, was not recovered whilst one of the rings, the subject of the third charge, was still in the possession of the accused at the time of his arrest, the other having been lost in a gambling school. 3. The victim in respect of both the theft charges was the accused's own mother, he having, on consecutive nights, stolen a necklace from her. The first necklace consisted of a gold chain with a gold pendant and was worth about $460; the appellant took this to a friend of his, telling the friend that his mother needed money urgently and had asked the appellant to pawn the necklace, but that since it was late at night and the pawnshops were closed, he was asking the friend to lend him money with the necklace as security; the friend lent him $360 which the appellant lost in gambling. The second necklace consisted of a gold chain with a jade pendant and was worth about $350; on the strength of a similar story, told to a different friend, the accused obtained a loan of $300 which he lost in gambling on that same night. The accused told the police that he is a compulsive gambler. 4. The facts related above were admitted by the appellant in the court below, whereas on his appeal against sentences in this Court, he said that his mother had agreed to lend him the jewellery to pawn and that he was actually arrested at the pawnshop. He further said, during the hearing of his appeal, that the robbery charges had been fabricated against him. 5. The appellant has appeared before the courts on six previous occasions and has been found guilty of a total of ten offences including two of robbery and one of assault with intent to rob. 6. To say that the appeal is without merit is to understate the matter. The incidence of robbery at knife point is alarming and it is a feature of many of these offences that they are committed in lifts where the possibility of the victim obtaining assistance from any third party is as remote as is the possibility of escape. In such a situation the victim, frequently a woman or girl, is very much at the mercy of the possessor of the knife. Having regard to the incidence of this type of crime and to the appellant's background of previous convictions for robbery, the sentences of 14 months imprisonment imposed upon him, appear to me to fit neither the offences nor the offender; not the one because of the frequency of this type of very serious offence; not the other because of the appellant's record and of the fact that these were three offences committed during the course of a single week. In the case of Jaynoolabedeen Durbarree(1) Sachs L.J., giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) said
7. These words are particularly apt to Hong Kong in the context of the proclivity of so many robbers and would-be robbers for the moral support of a knife, and the reference to "the use of" knife cannot be confined to user for stabbing. Knives can be, and too frequently are, used for the purpose of intimidation. 8. In interfering with sentences which appear to me to be altogether too lenient, I have to decide upon the proper sentence to substitute. In the result, I am by no means certain that the sentences I propose are really adequate for these offences but I have allowed myself to be influenced, perhaps illogically, by the consideration that any increase in sentence upon an appeal, must be a salutary experience for an appellant. The appeals upon charges (A) (B) and (C), relating to robbery, are allowed and the sentences of 14 months imprisonment on each of these charges are set aside and substituted by sentences of two years imprisonment to run concurrently. The appeals in regard to charges (D) and (E), relating to theft, are dismissed, but will still run concurrently with the new sentences imposed on charges (A) (B) and (C). Representation: (1) 1968 52 Cr. App. R. 238 @ 240 |