HKSAR v. Li Cheung Yin

DCCC 655/2014

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 655 OF 2014

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.The defendant has pleaded guilty to two offences of theft, one offence of forgery of documents and one offence of possession of dangerous drugs.

2.Shortly stated, the defendant stole a car, stole a pair of number plates, put the stolen number plates on a stolen car, was arrested, when he was found to be in possession of that stolen car.  And a quantity, smallish quantity of drug was found inside the vehicle.  The defendant has admitted all of these facts, and I have convicted him of those four offences that result out of this episode.

3.In slightly more detail, the car was stolen on 19 January this year, 2014, in the early morning, or more correctly, it was stolen between 19 and 30 January. In that the car, which is a Honda Civic, grey Honda Civic with the licence plate PE 7199 shown, was left on the 19th and found to be missing on the 27th.

4.The number plates were stolen on 29 January. That is when another car, another Honda Civic was parked and the plates which were PY 7503 were stolen.

5.The defendant was found with the vehicle and stolen plates on 30 January, that is the next day.  He was talking on the phone standing next to the car.  He eventually went back into the car.

6.He was arrested.  Some gloves and a screwdriver were found inside the vehicle.  Also the fact that there were stolen plates and the car was stolen was discovered as well.  There was a bag inside the car, and inside another bag was found some Ice and cocaine.  Some other registration plates were found in the vehicle as well.

7.Initially the defendant denied under caution, but he made full admissions in court. 

8.Those are the facts of the case.

9.The defendant also agreed his antecedents which were put before the court.  These show that he is 30 years old.  He is in a relationship, cohabitation relationship and responsible two children.  I will return to that in more detail later. 

10.The defendant has a number of convictions which are admitted; 12 occasions on which he has been convicted.  He has a history of drug convictions dating back to 2002.  He has been to a drug addiction treatment centre and has been imprisoned for those offences; more recently, receiving sentences of about 8 months’ imprisonment which would appear to show pleas of guilty.

11.The defendant was convicted of offences of theft in 2011 and received sentences of 2 years’ imprisonment in respect of two separate theft offences, 16 months of one of those was ordered to run consecutively to the other, and they ran consecutively to an existing sentence from Kowloon City.  This amounts to a fairly lengthy period of imprisonment in 2011.

12.The defendant has placed mitigation before the court.  I have very helpfully had a detailed mitigation on the defendant.  Of significance in sentencing the defendant is that he is in a relationship with what is described as a girlfriend.  They are not married but they have two children.  They are both daughters; one is 4 and the other is round about 4 to 5 months old.

13.The history of the younger girl is unfortunate; the baby daughter is taken care of intermittently in the Shek Kip Mei Children’s Home.  The elder daughter is hospitalised because of her health condition.  That may be a permanent feature in that young child’s life.  This obviously places a high burden on the family. The defendant attributes some of his mental distress to that and also to his drug taking.

14.The explanation the defendant put forward in mitigation and also in the reports I obtained in respect of his reason for committing this offence is that he stole the car in order to improve his ability to transport the daughter.  She needs treatment, she has acupuncture treatment which involves going to a clinic, and this happens three or four times a week.  The defendant found the travelling time onerous and also was upset at the way people would look at the girl on the train.

15.The cohabitant asked him to buy a car, but the defendant eventually stole one because of a lack of money.  That really shows a lack of a proper approach to lawfulness, in my view.  What can be said in respect of the theft of the car is it was not an expensive car; it was not, a luxury vehicle.  The car was bought for $27,000 in February of 2013.  So it would be unlikely that the car would be sold for resale purposes.  There had been no evidence that this was part of any kind of cross-border theft of a vehicle.

16.The defendant’s history, certainly his personal history is unusual especially the fact of the children’s problems.  So I obtained reports.  I have a background report and also a report from the drug addiction treatment centre. 

17.The background report gives more detail as to the mitigation put forward by the defendant and supports what is said in the mitigation.  It sets out the defendant’s unfortunate long history of drug addiction, I call it drug consumption.  I note that both parents have been imprisoned, but they now both assume responsibility for these children.  The description of the way in which the children are cared for shows that it is quite an onerous burden for them.  But they both show concern to the children and they seem to be able to manage with the assistance from social services.

18.The defendant told the interviewing officer, he stole the car because he wanted to drive his elder daughter for acupuncture consultations.  He attributed his drug abuse to undesirable peer influence and pressure arising from the relationship between his mother and his cohabitant and also the stress of travelling with the elder daughter. 

19.Of interest, he described himself as being selfish and wrongly relying on drugs to manage his emotional pressure.  He has asked the court to disqualify him from holding a driving licence. 

20.It is said that the accused has realised his problems and weakness and shows motivation to turn anew with the hope to care for his daughters.  He is ready to receive any sentence of imprisonment, and he has asked for disqualification from driving. 

21.It has been said that the defendant has been unable to grasp the chance to treat his drug problem.  The defendant is another man who has an unfortunate history largely, I suspect, because of his compulsion to take drugs.

22.Background report shows that he is able to hold down employment.

23.Possibly of some encouragement is the drug addiction treatment centre report which says he is no longer a drug dependent. It would appear that the defendant no longer has a physical dependency but of course there is a psychological element to drug dependency as well.  That is no doubt the challenge that the defendant will have to face on his eventual release from imprisonment.   

24.So, in summary, what can be said in respect of the defendant is this.  In respect of the offence itself, it was not committed for the normal reasons to steal vehicles.  It is a low value vehicle, stolen for convenience sake.  The defendant has a difficult home situation but has shown responsibility towards the two daughters, and he is supported by his cohabitant. 

25.Any sentence of imprisonment will of course impact on the children as well as the cohabitant and the defendant.  And my assessment of the reports is that the children do need the defendant’s help.

26.Nevertheless, the theft of a vehicle is a serious offence and must carry a sentence of imprisonment.  Also the defendant has shown himself to be a person who is guilty of offences of dishonesty in the past and has received a fairly lengthy sentence in respect of theft in 2011.

27.I do not sentence the defendant for his previous convictions but it does show a lack of deterrent effect in previous sentencing.  In sentencing the defendant, I have to balance all these factors.

28.Turning to the charges themselves, the 1st charge is the theft of a vehicle.  The courts have said the starting points of up to and beyond 3 years’ imprisonment are appropriate for the theft of a private car.  I see no reason to substantially depart from those starting points. 

29.So on the 1st charge, I take a starting point of 3 years’ imprisonment.  I reduce that to 2 years’ imprisonment for the defendant’s plea of guilty.  There will also be a 2 years’ disqualification for driving.

30.On the 2nd charge of the theft of the number plates, I take a starting point of 18 months’ imprisonment.  I reduce that to 12 months or 1 year’s imprisonment on the 2nd charge. 

31.I will impose the same sentence in respect of the forgery of documents which is a starting point of 1½ years’ imprisonment and a sentence of 1 year’s imprisonment after reduction for a plea of guilty.

32.In respect of the 4th charge, I will take a starting point of 12 months’ imprisonment, reduce that to 8 months’ imprisonment for the defendant’s plea of guilty.

33.I take the view that the first three offences are effectively part and parcel of the same set of criminality, so I order those sentences to run concurrently.

34.As far as the final charge is concerned, that is the sentence that is in respect of the possession of dangerous drugs, I order 4 months of that to be served concurrently to the existing sentence and 4 months consecutively.  It gives an overall sentence of 2 years and 4 months’ imprisonment and a 2-year disqualification from driving on the 1st charge.