HKSAR v. Lee Boon Hong
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DCCC1139/2010 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO. 1139 OF 2010 ----------------------
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-------------------------- Reasons for Sentence -------------------------- 1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to three charges, the first two being charges of attempting to obtain property by deception, contrary to section 17(1) of the Theft Ordinance, Chapter 210 and section 159G of the Crimes Ordinance, Chapter 200, Laws of Hong Kong; and the 3rd charge being an offence of possessing false instruments, contrary to section 75(1) of the Crimes Ordinance, Chapter 200. 2.The Summary of Facts which you have agreed show that on 28 August 2010, at about 4.45 pm, you produced the Visa card named in the 1st charge to a shop assistant at the airport in order to pay for a laptop computer and computer bag. Whilst you were waiting for the transaction to be processed, you cancelled the transaction and left. This is Charge 1. 3.A short time after that, you went to another shop at the airport and produced the Citibank MasterCard named in Charge 2 to a shop assistant in order to purchase a watch. The card was rejected. You took back the card and left. The security assistant to the shop followed you and intercepted you just before you were to board a flight. He called the police who arrived and a search on you disclosed four credit cards in your wallet, all of which were forged cards. These are the facts which relate to Charges 2 and 3. 4.You told the police in a subsequent cautioned interview that you were in debt in Malaysia and the loan sharks in Malaysia arranged for you to come to Hong Kong to use the forged cards to purchase goods which could later be sold in order to pay off your debts. 5.You are 27 years of age and a Malaysian national. I am told that you got into debt by betting heavily in the World Cup and, as a consequence, fell into debt and were used by the loan sharks to come to Hong Kong to commit these offences as a way of repaying your debts. 6.This excuse put forward on your behalf, I find, does not operate in any way to mitigate the seriousness of these offences. It has been said time and again that offences such as these damage the integrity of the credit card system and erode the confidence that ordinary people place in the use of credit cards. In this particular case, you had five forged credit cards on you and, fortunately, the two attempts you made to utilise them did not work. The fact that there was no actual loss was of course fortunate, but it is the potential for significant loss to traders that is the important consideration. 7.I would have taken as my starting point a sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment on each of the charges. However, due to the international dimension in this case which I find to be an aggravating feature, I will increase this starting point to one of 3 and a half years’ imprisonment on each charge. You are entitled to a one-third discount to reflect your plea of guilty and I indeed will so reduce your sentences, coming to a sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment on each charge. 8.Due to the question of totality of sentence, I order the sentences of 28 months’ imprisonment on each charge to run concurrently with each other.
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