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DCCC809/2009
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 809 OF 2009
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HKSAR |
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v. |
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Chan Yan-yip 陳欣業 |
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Date:
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25 February 2010 at 10.12 am
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Present:
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Mr Chau Tin-hang, Anthony, PP of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR
Mr Leung Chiu-jam, Paul, instructed by Messrs Chow & Ho, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant
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Offence:
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(1) Counterfeiting notes with intent(有意圖而偽製紙幣)
(2) Passing counterfeit notes(行使偽製紙幣)
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. The defendant has pleaded guilty to two charges. The 1st charge is one of making thirteen counterfeit $1,000 notes and one counterfeit $500 note, with intent that he and another shall pass them as genuine currency. The 2nd charge is a charge of passing those notes. The 1st charge, the date of that offence was in January 2009. The 2nd offence was committed on 31 January 2009.
2. The facts admitted by the defendant disclose that on 31 January 2009 a dispute report caused two police officers to arrive at the scene of the dispute. The informants alleged that they had received fake money in the sum of $13,500, that is the 13 $1,000 notes and the one $500 note the subject of the charge. The 14 notes were forensically examined. They were found to be InkJet products which were copied from three sets of banknotes, that is nine $1,000 Bank of China banknotes and four HSBC banknotes, and a further HSBC $500 banknote. The examiner noticed that there was no security thread embedded in the notes. The 14 counterfeit banknotes were sent for further forensic analysis, and a palm print of the defendant was found on one of the notes.
3. The defendant was arrested as his residence in April. He told the police that he had made the faked money at his home with a printer and three genuine notes sometime in January, intending to use them later. On 31 January he had spent the fake notes outside a cooked food stall at Choi Wan Estate in Wong Tai Sin. He told the police that he had since disposed of his printer because it malfunctioned.
4. The defendant has two previous convictions. They are not for similar offences. He appeared before the court on the same occasion in September of 2007 for two offences, one of engaging in bookmaking and one of possession of dangerous drugs. In respect of those offences, he was ordered to serve a period in a rehabilitation centre.
5. I am told that the defendant is 22 years of age. He was educated to Form 1 standard. He has had a variety of jobs in the past and was unemployed at the time of his arrest. At that time he was living with his mother, who is divorced from his father.
6. In relation to the offence itself, counsel urged upon me that this was a frolic on the part of the defendant. He had produced the forged banknotes on a photocopying machine, and the notes produced were of a rather crude quality.
7. The offences to which the defendant has pleaded guilty are serious offences. Making counterfeit notes is an extremely serious offence and, as the Court of Appeal has said previously, it calls for a heavy and deterrent sentence. The court has said that a number of factors should be looked at, including the scale of the manufacturing operation, the quantity, value and degree of sophistication of the counterfeit copies, the nature and efficiency of the paraphernalia, the length of time for which the offences has been carried on, and the relevant background of the individual defendant.
8. The police examiner who looked at these notes opined that, as far as he was concerned, they were of poor quality. And, as counsel has said, this was not a sophisticated operation, and the defendant was acting alone.
9. A number of cases have been placed before the court. I have read those cases, and none of them are identical obviously to the facts which are before me today. Having considered those cases and the sentences passed in those cases, I have decided that an appropriate starting point in this case is a sentence of 3½ years. The defendant is entitled to the usual discount for his guilty plea. There has also been some special features of mitigation placed before the court in this case.
10. What I have decided to do, therefore, is pass a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment on the defendant. That will be in respect of each offence, and the sentences will run concurrently.
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