CRIMINAL CASE NO. 287 OF 2011
COURT: Chan Ka-fai, you have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates' Court to a charge of robbery. The robbery was committed on 10 March this year in the telecom room on the 15th floor of the building in which you lived in Tin Wah Estate, in Tin Shui Wai.
The victim of the robbery was a 44-year-old woman who had come to Hong Kong from the Mainland relatively recently and who was a member of the staff of a dating agency. You spoke to her on the telephone when she was at the agency and persuaded her to come and meet you in Tin Wah Estate to discuss the terms of business of the dating agency. You claimed that you were too busy to visit the agency yourself.
She met you at a bus stop at Tin Wah Estate on the date of the offence. You then persuaded her to come into the building in which you lived by pretending that you were employed as a debt collector and had a debt to collect inside the building. You told her that while you were inside the building, you and she could discuss your application to use the dating agency.
You then took her up to the very small telecom room on the 15th floor to which you had a key. You switched on the light in the room and you both entered and she then started to explain to you the business of the dating agency. You then suddenly switched off the light. When you switched on the light again you were holding an open paper-cutter in one hand and plastic flexi-cuff straps in the other hand. You then tied her up with the plastic straps and searched her handbag. You then stole the contents of her handbag, which are itemised in the charge.
You then locked her inside this very small telecom room and fled. It appears that she was in the room for almost an hour and a half before anyone became aware of her plight. Eventually, she managed to alert other residents of the building by shouting and banging on the door. It appears that you were arrested the following day and you claimed that you had committed the robbery because you owed money to somebody.
Armed robbery with a knife is always a serious offence. In this case it was particularly serious. It was a coldly calculated scheme to lure a woman on her own to your building so that you could rob her in the telecom room, using a key to the telecom room which you had somehow acquired. She was not only threatened with the cutter but tied up using the plastic straps which you had brought with you.
What would have caused her additional fear was the fact that you then locked her in the telecom room where she remained for almost an hour and a half. The fact that she asked you for water and/or food to be given to her, none of which you did provide her with, as well as somewhere to urinate showed that she thought that she might be there for a considerable time.
I am satisfied that the appropriate starting point in this case is 7 years’ imprisonment. I have listened to all that Mr Luk has said on your behalf. The only real mitigation in this case is your plea of guilty which you entered at the earliest opportunity, and for that you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third. I sentence you to 4 years 8 months’ imprisonment.