HKSAR v. Leung Chun Ho

DCCC725/2012

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 725 OF 2012

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Leung Chun-ho, you have been convicted on your own plea of the offence of burglary. The offence was committed by you in the early hours of the morning on 13 June this year at a bar in Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island where you live with your parents and two young children.

2.At about 2.25 in the morning, after the bar was closed, you climbed into the bar through a ventilation window at the back of the premises.  Inside the bar you stole a jar containing $200 in coins, and you then left through the back door. 

3.At around 6.00 am you left Lamma by ferry for Central.  Fortunately your image was captured both at the premises and at the ferry pier.  You were arrested in Central four days later.

4.It appears that between the time that you committed this offence and time you were arrested you had committed another offence of theft in a bar.

5.As I am sure you have been told by Mr Shin, the usual starting point for burglary in non-domestic premises is 2½ years’ imprisonment.  I bear in mind that there was nobody present in the premises when you entered and that there was no suggestion that you broke the window or caused any damage inside the bar.  On the other hand I have to bear in mind that this was a burglary committed at night and that you are a man who has a long history of offences of dishonesty.

6.In all the circumstances I consider that there is no reason to depart from the starting point of 2½ years’ imprisonment.  I have listened to all that Mr Shin has said on your behalf.  I bear in mind that you have two young children.  The fact that you have two young children does not appear, looking at your record, to have deterred you from committing criminal offences. 

7.The only real mitigation in this case is your plea of guilty, and for that you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.  I am sentencing you to 20 months’ imprisonment, and they will run consecutively to the sentences you are now serving.