HKSAR v. WANG MU FENG

CACC 21/2004

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 21 OF 2004

(ON APPEAL FROM DCCC NO. 1062 OF 2003)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Stock JA (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. This applicant seeks leave to appeal against a sentence of three and a half years’ imprisonment imposed in January 2004 by Judge Whaley in the District Court, having already abandoned his application in March 2004.  We therefore approach this application as an application to treat that abandonment as a nullity.

2. The applicant pleaded guilty to 13 charges of obtaining property by deception with the use of forged credit cards; to one charge of attempting to obtain by deception; and to one of possession of 14 forged credit cards.  He is a visitor from Taiwan who between 4 and 9 August 2003 went on a spree of obtaining goods from various outlets with forged credit cards.  In mitigation, he prayed in aid the grave illness of his wife as the fact that caused him to commit these offences.  The sentencing judge did not accept the truth of that allegation.  In the event, he took a six-year starting point, reduced to that to a term of four years to give effect to the plea of guilty, and for mitigation relating to family circumstances, reduced to that a term of three and a half years’ imprisonment.

3. The applicant has shown us today letters from his daughter and his mother which we have had translated to us.  He tells us that he abandoned his application because he had been advised by the Director of Legal Aid that he had no grounds of appeal; but he now wishes to renew his application because his wife and father have passed away and because he wishes to attend to his mother and daughter in Taiwan.

4. This history – and we make no finding as to whether or not his daughter is in fact adequately cared for – does not, as a matter of law, constitute a basis upon which to treat the abandonment as a nullity; and in any event the matters which he now prays in aid are matters for the Executive and not for the courts.  Accordingly, this application is dismissed.