HKSAR v. Yau Kwai on

DCCC928/2010

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 928 OF 2010

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Yau Kwai-on, you have been convicted on your own plea of a charge of domestic burglary. The offence occurred in September last year when you broke into a village house in Tai Po Kau Lo Wai. The house had been left secure by its owner who only visited it from time to time. Once inside, you ransacked the house. You stole a TV set, a hi-fi, 50 chairs and 5 tables. Not content with that, you removed four pairs of window frames that were installed in the windows and also 13 pairs of window bars which were also installed in the windows. You were traced because you left your DNA on cigarette butts and a pair of shorts in the premises.

2.As Mr Li will have told you, the normal starting point for a burglary in domestic premises where the offender is of full age and of previous good character is 3 years’ imprisonment.  Although your criminal record which I have seen this morning now records three other convictions, it appears that each of those offences was committed after this offence and so at the time you committed this offence, you had no previous convictions.

3.In my view, the appropriate starting point in this case is 3 years' imprisonment.  Your plea of guilty entitles you to the usual discount of one-third.  I have carefully considered the fact that at the time you were sentenced for the two charges of burglary on 22 February this year, seven months ago, you had already committed this offence.  The court then was unaware of this offence because the police had not yet obtained evidence connecting you to it.  If the court had been aware of this offence and you had pleaded guilty, it would have passed a sentence of 2 years' imprisonment in respect of this offence but it would have ordered that parts of the sentences on the other burglaries would run consecutively to the sentence on this case.

4.In view of the fact that the court ordered 2 months of the sentence on the second of the two burglaries to run consecutively to the sentence on the first burglary, it is reasonable to assume that it would have ordered 2 months of the first of those burglaries to run consecutively to the sentence in this case.  Bearing in mind that seven months have elapsed since those sentences, I am prepared to discount the sentence I would otherwise have passed on this offence by a further 5 months.  The sentence of this court is therefore 19 months' imprisonment to take effect from today.