HKSAR v. Thapa Min Bahadur

DCCC 322/2014

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 322 OF 2014

----------------------

---------------------

Reasons for Sentence

---------------------

1.Defendant, I convicted you after trial of an offence of robbing a 46-year-old lady called Tang Hau-ling of her mobile phone.

2.The facts that I found proved at the trial of this matter were that at 3.30 am on 2 April of 2014, Miss Tang was walking by herself on her way home along Cheung Sha Wan Road.  She was carrying a shoulder bag on her right side and a white mobile phone in her left hand.  When she approached near to the junction of Cheung Sha Wan Road and Pei Ho Street, you, who was then masked in a scarf, suddenly approached from behind and grasped her right arm and attempted to snatch her shoulder bag.  There then followed a struggle during which the victim struggled to retain hold of her shoulder bag with both hands while still holding the phone.  During the struggle, the victim was shouting for help, and later you grabbed her mobile phone and ran off towards Pei Ho Street. 

3.The victim followed you and was shouting out as she did so.  Two passers-by, a Mr Chau and a Miss Li, were in the vicinity at the time when they heard the victim shouting that she had been robbed.  They saw you walk past them and you still had the scarf over your face at that time. Having heard the lady shouting for assistance and seeing your appearance, they suspected that you were the robber and Mr Chau saw you run into an alleyway nearby.  He chased after you and detained you in the alley, held you on the floor, and whilst detained on the floor, you took the opportunity to remove the victim’s phone from your rear pocket and place it on the ground by the side of where the struggle was taking place with Mr Chau.

4.Shortly afterwards, Miss Li arrived at the scene of the struggle, picked up the mobile phone.  Shortly after that the victim and the police arrived on the scene and the victim identified her mobile phone which at that stage had a crack in it for being thrown on the floor by yourself.  The victim recognised you as the person who had snatched her mobile phone, and she identified the mobile phone which had been picked up by Miss Li as being her mobile phone which was stolen during the robbery.  

5.You remained silent at the scene, and later, an interview was conducted in the presence of a Nepalese interpreter and you denied having committed the offence.  You persisted in that denial despite what I consider to be overwhelming evidence against you. 

6.You have one previous matter on your record here.  For a matter of theft in September 2012, you were sentenced to 4 weeks’ imprisonment suspended for a period of 12 months.  That suspended sentence had finished by the time you committed the current offence.

7.Somewhat unusual in offences of this gravity, I adjourned the case on the last occasion so that I could have the advantage of a report prepared by the probation service.  Throughout that report, you maintained that you were not responsible for this offence and you maintained that you could not remember the details of the only previous matter recorded on your record.  In both regards, you were clearly lying to the probation officer. 

8.The whole point of obtaining these reports was to gain some insight as to what had caused you to commit this offence.  The report describes how you were brought up in a large Nepali family.  You were the youngest child in the family and you had not encountered financial hardship as you had been well provided for by the elder siblings.  It says that you were the seventh child in this Nepali family.  Your father was an ex-British soldier in Nepal.  Your parents came to Hong Kong when you were 9 years old and your father was employed as a security guard. 

9.You came to Hong Kong in 2005, and you were educated for a short while in Hong Kong but gave up your education.  Most of the time, you worked at construction sites on a casual basis.  You were working as a scaffolder for a few months at the time you were arrested for this offence.  You were given pocket money when you were jobless.

10.Your family members describe you as being an introverted, mild character with a small social circle.  They said all along you had been a home-orientated person without outside entertainments.  

11.There was a suggestion in the report that you had been dabbling in drug taking, but I am told by your counsel that was only for a short period of time, and that was not connected with this incident. 

12.It says in the report you declined to talk about your previous offence and maintained a plead-not-guilty stand towards the current offence.

13.Counsel who represents you today has found it difficult to put forward any meaningful mitigation because you have refused to admit the offence.  So it is difficult for him to offer an explanation for your behaviour. 

14.No weapon was used in the commission of the offence.  Fortunately, Miss Tang was not injured.  Despite the struggle which took place at the scene of the robbery with Miss Tang when you attempted to grab her bag, you did not strike her.

15.However, this is a serious offence.  The victim is 46 years of age.  She was walking on her own at 3.30 in the morning. You made a concerted effort to grab her bag.  And I was satisfied on the facts that you had gone out, deliberately seeking a victim in this case.  You had obscured part of your face with a scarf.  For this lady, it must have been a terrifying experience.

16.The normal sentence for offences of this kind where no weapon is used is a sentence of 4 years’ imprisonment.  You have got one previous conviction for theft, and that was in 2012. 

17.I have considered the contents of the report that has been prepared upon you, and I have weighed up the mitigating factors that have been urged upon me by your counsel with the aggravating features which I have identified.  In all the circumstances, I have decided that I should adopt the starting point of 4 years’ imprisonment. You will go to prison for 4 years.