HKSAR v. Limbu Hukumsing and Another

DCCC489/2010

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 489 OF 2010

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.You each have been convicted on your own plea of the offence of burglary at a China Light & Power substation.

2.At around midnight in the early hours of 21 March this year, you were seen by a security officer of China Light & Power Company on a CCTV system inside the No. 1 transformer room of the Yuen Long Substation of their company.  When the police arrived some one hour later, they found you still inside the No. 1 transformer room.  They also found pieces of broken copper lighting conductor in the room as well as a pair of bolt cutters.

3.China Light & Power later confirmed that two pieces of lighting conductor were missing.  When you were later interviewed, you both admitted that you had entered the substation and had stolen the lighting conductors from the transformer room.

4.From the facts that have been made known to me, it clearly was not an offence that had been committed on the spur of the moment.  You took advantage of the hours of darkness to climb into this building, bringing with you a bolt cutter.  As I said, you had been in the premises for approximately an hour before the police arrived.

5.Neither of you can claim to be men of previous good character.  Indeed, both of you have poor records in relation to dishonesty.  You, Limbu Hukumsing, have been convicted on 10 previous occasions of offences of theft.  It appears that on each occasion, you were sentenced to a short sentence of imprisonment.  Your record, Gurung Iman Sing, is not as bad.  Nevertheless, you have been before the courts for three offences of theft as well as an offence of burglary.

6.The offence before the court now was committed not long after both of you had been released from prison.  I see no reason not to adopt the normal starting point of 2 and a half years in respect of the burglary of non-domestic premises.  I find that there is nothing that warrants any reduction in that sentence other than the fact that you have pleaded guilty today.  Your pleas of guilty entitle you to the usual discount of one‑third.  I sentence each of you to 20 months' imprisonment.