CRIMINAL CASE NO. 46 OF 2010
COURT: On 14 July 2009, Cheung Tak-wa (‘D1’) visited the flat of a lady who worked as a prostitute in premises commonly known as a one-woman brothel. D1 was posing as a customer wanting a sexual service from her. A price was agreed and both parties had undressed and were engaging in sex when D1 produced a small bottle containing chloroform, intending to render the victim unable to put up any resistance to being robbed.
In fact, the victim saw the bottle. D1 pretended that what he was holding was something that would make them feel, as he put it, “higher”. But the victim immediately began to feel dizzy after D1 had blown fumes in her direction from the bottle.
D1 then turned to violence by sitting on the victim’s legs and grabbing her neck, making it hard for her to breathe. The victim struggled and asked D1 to stop. It was then that he poured the bottle of chloroform over the victim’s face and neck and demanded all her money. The victim told D1 that her handbag was in the sitting room but she was told by him to go and fetch her money. She did as she was told and, in fact, handed over the $2,000 to D1 which is represented in the count of robbery, Count 2.
The victim was then told by D1 to fetch his clothes but she said at some stage that she was too weak and dizzy to do so and this caused D1 to go into the sitting room where his clothes were to fetch them for himself. He then returned to the bedroom to put them on, leaving the victim in the sitting room. She grabbed the moment and, seizing her chance, she went outside the flat and called for help which, fortunately, was heard by a neighbour.
D1 also heard the calls made by the victim and he fled from the flat as quickly as he could, in bare feet. A neighbour tried to stop him but D1 was able to escape. There was then a turn of events because, after a few minutes, D1 had obviously realised that he had left behind several personal possessions, including his identity card, and so he reappeared at the flat, offering to give the victim her money back.
It is perfectly plain that this was not done in a spirit of remorse. Indeed, Ms Lee, in her very able address in mitigation, has not for one moment suggested anything to the contrary. This was done by D1 to try to make amends in order, he hoped, to get out of the trouble he was in so that he could then retrieve his things. It is perfectly plain that is what was going on.
However, the victim and the neighbour were able, between them, to subdue D1, and others also came to their assistance. Police were called and after their arrival, D1 told them that he had done this with a friend because he had no money. He added that he had not intended to injure anyone. He then provided the police with the address of his friend who, he said, had also been involved in the offence.
Apart from D1’s ID card, the police also recovered from the victim’s flat some string made of nylon which could be used for tying someone up, and of course, there was the bottle which had contained chloroform, together with a piece of green cloth.
Meanwhile, the victim was taken to hospital where she had multiple superficial burns. There were also some scratch marks over her neck. Fortunately, no severe chemical injury was caused to her eyes but she had to be given eye medication as she had a haematoma over the left tympanic membrane, and she was kept in hospital for a further three days and was discharged on 18 July.
D1 was interviewed. He admitted working at the pharmaceutical company which produced medicines and other products where this chloroform had come from. He earned a salary of $6,500 and had been declared bankrupt.
I pause there to say that in a report made about two weeks after this robbery, on behalf of the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society, it is stated that D1 “presented that he was unable to control his drive to go for prostitution. He started it when he was 14 years old and now went to prostitution in China weekly or bi-weekly.”
Law Ching-hung (‘D2’) was a colleague of his at work. They had discussed between them how to rob one-woman brothels and, during the afternoon of 14 July, he and D2, who it must be said had been entrusted with the keys to the storeroom where chloroform was kept because D2 was a store assistant at the company, both of them went to the storeroom and stole some chloroform which was decanted into a small bottle that they had taken for the purpose.
D1 admitted that he intended to use chloroform in the robbery and that he had proposed tying up the prostitute after he had rendered her unconscious. But when his plan backfired, he fled the premises, and returned to get his possessions.
D2’s role was somewhat different. His breach of trust by stealing the chloroform was a serious one. He was approached, according to him in the interview he had with the police, by D1 for ideas about how they might make some money as D1 had lost all his money having, as he put it, “fun” in the Mainland. It was then that they discussed robbing one-woman brothels. He admitted obtaining a bottle for the chloroform and also a piece of green cloth, and to stealing the chloroform, with D1, in the storeroom.
D2 said that he set off with D1 later in the day, after they had finished work, intending to help in the robbery. He was going to act as a lookout while D1 carried out the robbery, using, he knew, chloroform and nylon strings. Between them, they apparently visited, he said to the police, various one-woman brothels in Yuen Long before they selected an appropriate target.
Before the robbery, D2 talked to D1 at a restaurant in Yuen Long and told D1 that he had now changed his mind and had decided not to go through with this, and he advised D1 not to do so also. He then parted company with D1 and went home. The police have been able to confirm that D2 had arrived home by the time the robbery took place.
There is very little mitigation for D1. He is 22 and he has no previous convictions, but his guilty pleas today will stand him in good stead and he will receive the appropriate credit for that.
D2 is 24 and also has a clear record. He too will receive full credit for his guilty pleas. He stands in a different category to D1 and will, on account of his reduced role and ultimate decision not to go through with the robbery, receive a much reduced sentence. If he had gone through with the offence, there would have been no reason to distinguish between the two defendants.
As I have said already, women who work as prostitutes in one-woman brothels live in constant fear and a state of high alert because of the danger posed by men who regard them as easy prey. It is for this reason that they deserve the maximum protection the courts can provide in order to deter others from following the path D1 has chosen to take in this case.
The use of chloroform, which is potentially deadly, is a grossly aggravating factor in this robbery and it is plain that if all had gone to plan, D1 would have left the victim unconscious and tied up in her own flat. Even so, as it turned out, this was, as Ms Lee realistically said, a “brutal and very nasty robbery”.
In D1’s case, I do not propose to make consecutive sentences on Counts 1 and 4 for stealing and administering the chloroform. These two factors very considerably aggravate the offence of robbery. So I propose instead to enhance the starting point for robbery on this count by 5 years.
Cheung Tak-wa, would you stand up, please. I consider that the starting points on Counts 1 and 4 should be 4 years and 6 years’ imprisonment respectively. You pleaded guilty and so you will receive a sentence on each of those counts which is reduced by a third.
On Count 1, the sentence will be 2 years and 8 months and on Count 4, the sentence will be 4 years’ imprisonment. Those two sentences are to run concurrently.
The sentence after trial which, in my judgment, would have been appropriate for the robbery would have been 12 years’ imprisonment, and I say that for the reasons I have already set out. You have pleaded guilty and this must be reflected by a reduction of a third.
On Count 2, for robbery, you will go to prison for 8 years. The other sentences run concurrently, so the total in your case is 8 years’ imprisonment. Please sit down.
Law Ching-hung, will you stand, please. It is as well for you that you changed your mind and tried to persuade your friend to give up his plan or you would now be receiving exactly the same sentence as him.
As it is, you stole chloroform from your employer who had entrusted you with the storeroom keys, and you stole it knowing what it was going to be used for and so that Cheung, your colleague at work, would use it to rob a prostitute. The value of the chloroform - and no one has suggested to the contrary - is of no significance whatsoever in a case of this kind. It is the purpose for which you were stealing it which makes this theft so serious.
A proper starting point in the circumstances of this case, I consider, is one of 4 years’ imprisonment. Both you and D1, Cheung, were acting in gross breach of trust and with a truly dreadful motive in mind. You backed out of the robbery itself after helping your friend to plan and to choose an appropriate target. The fact that you changed your mind and even tried to stop Cheung from going through with the robbery is much to your credit.
On Count 1, the sentence is that you will go to prison for 2 years and 8 months, which is a sentence which gives effect to the plea of guilty in your case.
On the very special facts of the conspiracy to rob, I consider that a starting point of 6 years is appropriate in your case. Again reducing the starting point by a third to reflect your plea of guilty, you will go to prison on Count 3, the conspiracy, for 4 years.
There is in that sentence no element of aggravation on account of the stealing of the chloroform, or the administering it, which you did not do in any event, but you knew full well what Cheung had in mind.
Accordingly, I am going to make 1 year of your sentence on Count 1, the theft, consecutive to the sentence on Count 3, making 5 years in all.