HKSAR v. Hon Ming Chor and Another
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DCCC379/2011 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO. 379 OF 2011 ----------------------
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-------------------------- Reasons for Sentence -------------------------- 1.The defendants have pleaded guilty to one offence of burglary. They agreed the summary of facts presented by the prosecution and I convicted them on the basis of those facts. 2.The summary of facts shows that the burglary took place at the meter room of a premises known as the Miramar Tower on Nathan Road. The meter room has copper straps linking upwards to the rooftop, and on the evening of 29 March 2011 those copper straps were firmly fixed to the walls inside the meter room. 3.The defendants were stopped on the evening of 29 March just before 10 o’clock walking out from the Miramar Tower. The first defendant was stopped. When he was stopped, he had a bag and pieces of the copper straps were found in the bag, together with items such as gloves and a screwdriver and a spanner and pliers. 4.The defendants were together and it was the 2nd defendant who admitted that the copper wire, pliers and wire clips, screws were stolen from the meter room, and that the copper straps had been cut out from the meter room, and there was a CCTV recording that showed the defendants entering the 5th floor of the Miramar Tower at about 9.15 on 29 March, and leaving at about 9.50 pm, and from these facts, it can be clearly shown that the two defendants burgled the 5th floor meter room and stole the items particularised in the particulars of offence. 5.It would appear from the facts that the location of the meter room at the Miramar Tower can be classified as a non-domestic burglary, commercial space. 6.As far as the defendant’s previous history is concerned, the 1st defendant is a 36-year-old man, educated to Form 2 level, has been unemployed for a considerable time. In fact, he and the 2nd defendant were in a relationship and were living together at the time. The 1st defendant told the officer taking his antecedence that he had an addiction to heroin. 7.The 1st defendant has 26 previous criminal convictions, starting in April 1991, and he had last been released from prison on 24 June 2010. 8.He has a number of convictions for possession of a dangerous drug and trafficking as well, and has been sentenced to a Drug Addiction Treatment Centre for those offences. He has a number of convictions - 10, in fact - for theft and attempted theft, also for going equipped for stealing and deception, amongst other convictions, so the defendant has a substantial body of convictions for offences of dishonesty, although this is his first conviction for burglary. 9.He has been sentenced to imprisonment on a number of occasions, most recently for theft in January 2010. 10.The 2nd defendant is a female. She is aged 43 years. She also described herself as a drug addict and she has worked in fast-food shops and was working in one at the time when this offence was committed. She is described as a divorced woman. She lived with the 1st defendant and she has a son of 23 years old. 11.This defendant has three previous convictions, two of them being for possession of a dangerous drug and one for theft from a vehicle. She has been sentenced to a Drug Addiction Treatment Centre and was released from there on 27 September 2010. 12.The 1st defendant in mitigation, it was said to be that he, in fact, has a son aged 4. He was living in China. It was said on his behalf he had been unemployed since about 1998. It was said there were no especially aggravating features to this burglary. There was no violence used in the course of the burglary. The defendant is remorseful. He attributes his criminality to his low education and asks for leniency. 13.The 2nd defendant also put forward mitigation, largely based on the fact that she has an addiction to drugs, and that is what drove her commission of this offence. She had been addicted to drugs since 1989, been to Drug Addiction Treatment Centre on two occasions, she said, and that she was only able to work in convenience stores and fast-food outlets. 14.She is described as a person of low esteem and that clearly her need for drugs drove her to commit the offence of dishonesty on this occasion. Counsel tells me that she had shown some remorse and wished to express her regrets to the residents of the Miramar Tower. 15.As far as the 1st defendant is concerned, he has a poor record for offences of dishonesty and the offence shows that the two defendants acted in concert. There was obviously a degree of planning and some tools were prepared, and there also must have been some physical damage to the premises by the removal of the copper straps which were affixed to the walls. 16.The summary of facts shows that the overall value of the items of the property stolen was about $7,800, so items of high value are not being targeted, and the premises was entered at a time when it would be expected there would be nobody there. 17.Taking all these factors into account, I considered that I should adopt what is described as the “normal starting point” for an offence of burglary of a non-domestic premises. The defendants acted together and I consider that that starting point is applicable to each of the defendants. 18.Taking that starting point to be 2½ years or 30 months, I now reduce that by the one-third for their pleas of guilty, which gives an end-sentence, a final sentence, for each of the defendants on this charge of 20 months’ imprisonment. That will be the sentence.
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