HKSAR v. Hung Wai Chun, Dee

DCCC 83/2013

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 83 OF 2013

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to three charges before this court. All three charges are theft contrary to section 9 of the Theft Ordinance.

2.The modus operandi for all three offences and their locations were similar. In simple terms, you targeted shoppers at supermarkets who had placed their handbags with their personal items on the shopping trolley.  When they were looking at goods on the shelf or not paying attention to their bag on their trolley, you stole their bags from under their nose. 

3.The 1st charge was committed on 8 October 2011 at the Taste Supermarket at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong.  The victim there lost a total of approximately $18,900 as a result of your theft. 

4.In respect of charge 3 (the second offence), you committed that offence on 9 August 2012 at the Welcome Supermarket in Mong Kok.  The total value of the stolen items was $9,100. 

5.On the 4th charge (third offence), that offence was committed on 23 October 2012 at another Welcome Supermarket, this time at Sham Shui Po.  In that case the bag was recovered but the cash was not, but I understand later the cash was found upon you and you have agreed to return that to the victim.

6.You have pleaded guilty on the second day of the trial after the trial was adjourned for a number of matters.  The evidence against you in respect of at least the 4th charge was overwhelming.  You were caught more or less red-handed with the handbag in the supermarket by the store manager.  Further in all the charges to which you have pleaded guilty, all your actions were caught on CCTV and your face was very clearly seen.  Visibly, you were the person captured on the CCTV footage who had carried out these three thefts inside the supermarkets.

7.Mr Edward Fan, your counsel, has mitigated fully and thoroughly on your behalf.  He has asked me first to take into account the fact that you pleaded guilty only on the second day because the video footage images were not as clear as that shown in court on the first day and for that reason you had then thought about it and entered your plea of guilty.  It has been noted in this case no witnesses were called and you had pleaded guilty before the trial had actually started.

8.You are a lady of 38 years of age, have 38 previous convictions of which 29 are related to theft.  Your last conviction was for theft in September 2010 of which you were discharged from the correctional institution on 7 April 2011.  You committed this offence in charge 1 no less than 6 months after your discharge from prison.  It is apparent to me, defendant, that you have been committing offences from a very young age, as I have calculated, starting from age 12.  Your first offence was also theft.  It was not until approximately six years later that you a term of imprisonment for your offences which you were sentenced to DATC.  From them on you have been continuously in and out of prison throughout your life for various offences more particularly related to theft and even one serious charge of trafficking in dangerous drugs to which you spent 5 years in prison. 

9.I am told that you have been committing these thefts as you have an addition to gambling and therefore you have borrowed money and stole to pay back money.  For whatever your reasons, defendant, in my view you are a professional thief and more particularly a thief of taking people’s handbags from supermarkets.

10.The loss and grief that you have caused to people because you taken their bags which contain their belongings must cause extreme distress to them.  You can only be described as a person who the citizens of Hong Kong should be protected from.  No matter what sentence has been passed on you previously, defendant, that has not deterred you at all. 

11.You continuously commit the same offence, come back to court are sentenced and yet are not deterred.  I have been told and I can see you have elderly parents and a brother who appears to continuously support you.  You are very fortunate to have a supportive family but I have no doubt that you have caused them immense sadness and grief from your continuous breach of the law. 

12.Defendant, I take the facts and sentencing of this case to be similar to that as pickpocketing see R v Lau Kin Hong HCMA335 of 1996. According to the case of HKSAR v Nguyen Van Hui, the usual starting point for an offence of pickpocketing by a defendant is between 12 and 15 months.  The 12 month starting point is usually for a first offender.  You are not a first offender.  I would therefore adopt a 15 months starting point for each offence, that is at the higher end. 

13.Defendant, also in Nguyen Van Hui the court took into account an aggravating factor of a defendant’s appalling previous criminal record.  There must be a substantial increase for your appalling previous records for theft.  There is the need to pass a deterrent sentence upon you as well as for the protection of society from you. 

14.In those circumstances I take 9 months as an additional sentence to reflect your poor criminal record.  That would make a total sentence of 24 months for each charge had I convicted you after trial. 

15.There are three charges before me to which you have pleaded guilty.  Had I convicted you after trial of all three charges, I must consider the principle of totality.  In regard to the principle of totality for these three offences, I would have taken a total starting point of 3 years’ imprisonment and giving you full credit for your plea of guilty that sentence would have been reduced to 2 years’ imprisonment. 

16.To reflect the total sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment, defendant, 8 months of charge 3 shall run consecutive to that of charge 1 and all other sentences shall run concurrent to each other.

17.So defendant just to make that clear, the sentence on each charge is 16 months imprisonment, 8 months of charge 3 is to run consecutive to charge 1, all other sentences to run concurrent to each other.