CRIMINAL CASE NO. 394 OF 2010
COURT: On 8 August last year at about 8.30 pm, a 27‑year‑old woman was walking home when she was suddenly grabbed by the neck from behind and pulled to the ground.
In the course of what followed, she was slapped around the face with great force, and when she cried out for help, was threatened with disfigurement if she did not stop making a noise. She was then robbed, slapped around the face again whenever she tried to resist, and indecently assaulted. The indecent assault initially took the form of having her breasts forcibly squeezed, but later, you penetrated her vagina with your finger.
When you were dragging the victim across the road to where there was some brushwood, a car appeared on the scene, which disturbed you, and consequently you ran off.
It was as a result of the intervention of the two witnesses in the car, Mr Wong Kun-leung and Miss Ng Wai-man, that you were eventually caught. Mr Wong, PW2, acted with great presence of mind and with considerable public spirit in embarking on a lengthy and sustained chase of you on foot which at one stage involved him in seizing a bicycle from a passing cyclist to try and catch up with you. For his conduct, which went beyond what might be expected of other public-spirited citizens, he should be publicly commended.
When you were eventually arrested as a result of Miss Ng’s call to the police, you claimed to have acted out of momentary greed, although a more sinister and premeditated picture emerged during your video-recorded interview. You told the police during that interview that you had been looking for a target at the railway station for some five minutes and, having settled on PW1 as your victim, you followed her for about 20 minutes before striking.
These are very serious circumstances, and although no weapon was used and the items stolen were of small value, you subjected PW1 to a terrifying ordeal in which she was repeatedly hit around the face in order to subdue her or when she would not co-operate, and subjected her to the indignity of an outrageous and humiliating indecent assault which must have made her terrified of what ultimately you might do to her.
I have heard a very full and realistic plea in mitigation on your behalf by your counsel, and I have to say I am quite impressed by the sensible letters that I have heard read out to me on your behalf, in particular from your father. It does look as though just when things had begun to sort themselves out in your rather troubled life in terms of reconciling yourself to your family, planning a future with your girlfriend, and holding down a job for an employer who is evidently impressed by your industry and conduct, you threw it all away in a few minutes of madness.
Those letters have not succeeded in reducing your ultimate sentence in any direct way. However, they have persuaded me that I should not penalise you for your record of similar offences in the light of the way that you had appeared to have turned your life around. So to that extent, they have neutralised the effect of your criminal record.
Nevertheless, whatever caused you to do what you did after beginning to put your life together again, women must be protected from conduct such as yours.
For an ordinary robbery in which no weapon is used and minimal violence takes place, a starting point of 4 years’ imprisonment would normally be appropriate. However, there are a number of aggravating features present in your case. Firstly, there was sustained and repeated violence of a very nasty, gratuitous kind, against a defenceless woman, resulting in a swelling and a bruise to her face, as well as an abrasion to her lip, coupled with the threat that if she did not co-operate, she would be disfigured.
Secondly, this attack was on a lone woman under cover of darkness in a place where there were, but for PW2’s car, no other people around. The location of this offence can only have added to PW1’s terror.
I shall not aggravate the sentence for the robbery count on account of the indecent assault, because that conduct is covered by a separate count on the indictment, and I do not intend to double count that particular factor. I shall pass a separate sentence in respect of Count 3.
In all the circumstances, the appropriate starting point on the robbery count, in the circumstances which I have described and with the aggravating features that I have taken into account, is one of 6 years’ imprisonment.
In relation to the indecent assault count, squeezing PW1’s breasts, in circumstances such as these, where your victim was powerless to resist, and when, on your own account, it went on for some 30 seconds, would be a serious form of indecent assault in itself. But the more serious act was inserting your finger into her vagina. Apart from humiliating her, it would have terrified her into wondering what else you had in your mind, in circumstances where she was completely alone and vulnerable and at your mercy.
In my judgment, the appropriate starting point after trial for this offence would be one of 4 years’ imprisonment.
In respect of both of those starting points, you are entitled to a one-third discount in respect of your pleas of guilty.
That reduction has the effect of reducing the sentence on Count 1 to one of 4 years’ imprisonment, and on Count 3 to one of 2 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.
The question then is to what extent should the sentences be consecutive or concurrent. Clearly, the indecent assault is part of the same course of conduct as the robbery, but it also significantly aggravates that course of conduct. At the same time, I have to bear in mind the principle of totality which would be offended if I passed wholly consecutive sentences for different acts arising out of the same course of conduct.
In all the circumstances, I consider that 1 year of the sentence of 2 years and 8 months should be ordered to run consecutively to the sentence of 4 years, the remainder to run concurrently.
Accordingly, upon your pleas of guilty, the overall sentence of this court is that you should go to prison for 5 years.