HKSAR v. Kong Wai Kit

DCCC87/2011

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO.87 OF 2011

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Reasons for Sentence

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The defendant was charged for theft, contrary to section 9 of the Theft Ordinance, Cap.210.

The defendant pleaded guilty and admitted the facts, he is convicted accordingly.

Facts

At all the material times, the victim company was engaged in the business of the promotion and marketing of gifts including cash vouchers of Park’N Shop and Wellcome. The victim company has a head office and two branch offices, namely the Hong Kong Centre and the Kowloon Centre.

Each center had installed two safes. The proper practice was to keep all the cash vouchers of Park”N Shop and Wellcome in the bigger safe whilst a minimal sum of cash vouchers would be kept in the smaller safe.

The defendant was the manager of Kowloon Centre and he was entrusted with the key of the bigger safe. The defendant had an exclusive control of the cash vouchers; and the record of the cash vouchers by mean of a ledger at the Kowloon Centre.

On 14 October 2010, the manager Yu of the head office conducted a stock taking of all the cash vouchers maintained at the two centres, during which he discovered a substantial short fall of cash vouchers at the Kowloon Centre and he related the matter to the boss.

Later on the same day, the defendant attended the head office and confessed to the boss that he had stolen cash vouchers since January 2010 from the bigger safe and offered to compensate in a week time. Initially the defendant said he had stolen cash vouchers in total of $500,000, however upon checking Yu found the total missing cash vouchers was $800,000.

On 15 October while the party still at the head office, the defendant signed two letters one for confession and one for compensation for the $800,000 worth cash vouchers; he promised to repay $300,000 by cheque on the same day and $500,000 by 22 October 2010. The defendant’s mother and sister signed as guarantor.

Yu later conducted a full stock taking and found cash vouchers in the sum of HK$2.28 millions had been stolen from the safes of Kowloon Centre. The matter was then reported to the Police.

Yu finally confirmed that between 4 June 2009 and 14 October 2010, cash vouchers in a total sum of HK$2,078,790 had been stolen by the defendant as admitted by him.

The police had found an excel document maintained in the hard disk of the defendant’s computer at Kowloon Centre which listed out the amount of cash vouchers he had stolen on a monthly basis together with details of the cash vouchers he had purchased from other suppliers.

Under caution, the defendant admitted that he had engaged in stealing the cash vouchers from the safes at the Kowloon Centre between January and October 2010 as he had lost a lot of money in gambling. He had sold cash vouchers at 5% discount to buyers and he had spent the sale proceeds. He had purchased cash vouchers from other suppliers in order to cover up the theft.

Mitigation

The defendant aged 25, single and lives with his family. His father used to be gainfully employed but he suffered a stroke in 2007 and is now bed bound. His mother is a housewife and his younger brother started working last year. His sister has married and lives apart. The defendant has become the sole breadwinner of the family since 2007.

The defendant has a clear record, he joined the victim company around 2004 as customer officer, he was promoted to assistant officer around 2007 and further promoted to assistant manager a year later and entrusted with the handling of cash vouchers. The defendant engaged in gambling in order to improve the living standard of the family and later addicted to it, he won some monies in the beginning but eventually he lost and out of greed, he abused his position and stole the cash voucher to cover his loss in gambling. He was remorse and felt shame at having caused great loss to his ex-employer and disappointed his family.

The defendant and his family have no mean to repay the $800,000 that they promised on 15 October, and up to the present stage he has not made any compensation to his employer.

I refer tothe sentencing guidelines inHKSAR v Cheung Mee Kiu CACC 99/2006, HKSAR v Ng Kwok Wing CACC 398/2007and the consideration stated in R v Barrick (1995) 81 Cr. App. R. 78.

The defendant was employed as customer officer since 2004 and promoted to his last position in 2008, he was entrusted with the key of the bigger safe of the Kowloon Centre and had exclusive control of the cash vouchers and the record of such. In breach of trust, the defendant abused his position for a period of about 1.5 year to steal cash vouchers on a monthly basis causing a net loss in a total sum over 2 million, the actual amount stolen would be much more as revealed by the facts. And he was not in a position to compensate his employer.

I consider the appropriate starting point to be 4 years, for his clear record I reduce it by 3 months. The defendant entitled to 1/3 discount for his plea. I do not consider there to be any mitigating factors that called for further deduction.

Order

The defendant is sentenced to 30 months imprisonment.