HKSAR v. Chan Chow Sing

DCCC999/2011 & 1109/2011
(Consolidated)

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NOS. 999 AND 1109 OF 2011

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to two charges, being Charge 1 and Charge 3 on the indictment, both charges being offences of burglary, contrary to section 11(1)(b) & (4) of the Theft Ordinance, Cap.210, Laws of Hong Kong.

2.The particulars of the 1st charge are that you entered on 11 May 2004 commercial premises in Kwai Chung and stole four gold ornaments valued at $4,400, the premises in question being the offices of the In-Touch Logistics Company. 

3.The particulars of the 2nd charge also involved commercial premises, being the office of Advance Technology at No.88 Queen’s Road Central, where you stole a notebook computer worth some $25,000.   

4.The Summary of Facts, which you have agreed, establish that in relation to both offences your fingerprints were found on articles inside the victimised premises. 

5.You are 41 years of age, married, and your wife I am told is pregnant.  A noticeable feature of your antecedents which have been placed before me is that you have many previous criminal convictions, five of which are for burglary and three for theft. 

6.I am told that you committed these offences as on both occasions you were looking for a job and went to the respective premises for an interview.  However, greed overcame you and you committed these offences. 

7.I am asked to consider these offences being akin to an opportunistic, sneak thief and therefore impose a lower starting point.   

8.I do not agree.  If anything, the fact that you abused your stated reason for going to these premises initially by committing these offences makes it, in my judgment, worse.  

9.The proper starting point for burglaries of non-domestic premises is one of 2½ years’ imprisonment.  I do indeed adopt that as my starting point in relation to both Charge 1 and Charge 3, but due to the fact that you have five previous convictions for burglaries, which I consider to be aggravating feature, I will increase that starting point by 3 months to one of 33 months’ imprisonment in relation to both charges. 

10.To reflect your plea of guilty I will discount those sentences by one-third, coming to 22 months’ imprisonment on each charge. 

11.In order to reflect the question of totality of sentence, I am prepared to order that 11 months of the sentence on Charge 3 is to run concurrently with the sentence on Charge 1 and the balance of 11 months consecutively, coming to an overall sentence of 2 years and 9 months’ imprisonment in all.

12.You have offered to pay the sum of $29,400 by way of compensation.  I therefore will make an order that insofar as the victim in Charge 1 is concerned, you are to pay $4,400 compensation, and in relation to the victim in Charge 3, you are to pay the sum of $25,000 within 3 months through the court.