FONG WAI LIN v. THE QUEEN

IN THE HIGH COURT OF HONG KONG

( APPELLATE JURISDICTION )

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 21 OF 1988

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J U D G M E N T

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1. The appellant was convicted on three charges, the first two being a woman exercising control over prostitution and one of managing a vice establishment. She was sentenced to a Training Centre. She appealed against her sentence.

2. The Court was supplied with numerous tables of sentences in respect of the charge of managing a vice establishment by magistrates in Mongkok, Yaumati, Happy Valley and Wanchai for 1987 and a few for 1988. The sentences passed indicate a wide range of sentences - very roughly about half were suspended sentences some with a fine and these included quite a few with previous conviction of a similar nature. As the Court of Appeal has said in HO Yuk-lan & another, Cri. App. No. 445 of 1979, offences of operating or assisting in the management of an unlicensed massage establishment must not be equated with offences relating to a vice establishment

3. The appellant has two previous convictions, one for assisting in the management of an unlicensed massage establishment and one for shoplifting. She was fined on both occasions.

4. The appellant was unrepresented in the court below. At first she admitted the charge relating to managing a vice establishment but she would not agree the facts. The Crown indicated that if she pleaded to the 3rd charge it would not proceed against the other charges. Even in her evidence she repeated she was prepared to plead guilty to the 3rd charge but not the others. I am inclined to think if she had been represented and in view of the Crown's concession she would not have disputed the facts.

5. Having regard to the fact that she has already been in a Training Centre for 3 months and to the wide disparity of sentences passed by magistrates on the third charge and in all the circumstances of the case I allow the appeal and substitute for the Training Centre Order a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment suspended for 2 years and a fine of 162,000.