HKSAR v. Gurung Iman Sing
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DCCC 587/2014 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO 587 OF 2014 ----------------------
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--------------------- Reasons for Sentence --------------------- 1.Defendant, you pleaded guilty to one charge of burglary, contrary to section 11(1)(a) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance, Cap 210, pleaded guilty to entering with intent to steal a restaurant in Knutsford Terrace, Tsim Sha Tsui on 27 March last year. 2.The facts of this case are very straightforward. At about 2 am on 27 March, the restaurant was locked up. The next day, the manager returned in the morning to find the front door prised open. The restaurant had been ransacked, and the cash register had been moved into the kitchen and dismantled. 3.You were arrested because three of your fingerprints were found on parts of the cash register. 4.You do have previous convictions. You have five previous convictions, of which two are burglary offences. The others relate to theft offences. I have been told today that you have a drug addiction. You may have had this addiction for some time. I can see in 2004 you were sentenced to a DATC order for a burglary offence. 5.In mitigation, I have heard that you are now 33 years old, a Nepalese national but born in Hong Kong. You were educated in Nepal but you now live here with your wife and sister. I have been told that you had numerous jobs in Hong Kong but were unemployed at the time of the offence. You were in need of money to feed your drug addiction habit. Your best mitigation today is your plea of guilty. 6.The usual tariff for a burglary of a non-domestic premise is a 2-and-a-half-year starting point if there are no mitigating or aggravating factors that exist. Neither exist here, but you must be warned this is your third burglary offence. If there is a fourth, then it is possible that the court will consider this an aggravating factor and increase the starting point. 7.Stand up, please. In this case, I will take a 2‑and‑a-half-year starting point. You are entitled to a discount of one-third for your plea today. Accordingly, for this offence, you are sentenced to 1 year and 8 months’ imprisonment. Do you understand that sentence? DEFENDANT: I understood.
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