Ho Fuk Sang v. The Queen

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 249 OF 1973

________________________

________________________

________________________

JUDGMENT

________________________

1.  This is an appeal against sentence. The Appellant was stopped by the police when he was driving a motor vehicle. He was asked for his driving licence and presented a forged licence. He had no valid licence. It then transpired that he had taken the vehicle without authority and, since he had no third party risk insurance of his own, he was driving uninsured. This was not the first time that he had committed offences of this kind for he asked for no less than nine previous offences of taking vehicles without authority into consideration. He pleaded Guilty to the four offences with which he was charged and was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment on the forgery charge, a fine of $75 or 14 days’ imprisonment for driving without a licence, a fine of $100 or one month, with disqualification for twelve months limited to private cars, for driving uninsured and eight months’ imprisonment for taking the vehicle without authority.

2.  He had four previous convictions, all for offences of dishonesty.  The record shows that for his first offence “a conviction was registered”, which I understand to mean that there was an absolute discharge with conviction recorded: for his second offence he was sent to a Training Centre: for his third offence  there was a suspended sentence of six months’ imprisonment – but within the period of the suspension he committed a further offence and was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.  There is nothing in the record to show that the suspension was ever lifted but, from what the Appellant has told us, it probably was. 

3.  The sentence of eight months’ imprisonment was made to run concurrently with the forgery sentence but the fines, of course, were inevitably additional, as were the periods of imprisonment in default.  I myself would possibly have approached the matter in a somewhat different way, for it seems to me that the two charges relating to driving licences were related and on one view the other two charges were related to each other.  However, having considered the matter carefully, I do not think this is a case where I ought to interfere.  The over all result is not an unjust one and the appeal is dismissed.

26th April 1973.