HKSAR v. NGUYEN VAN QUYET

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

1998, No.157
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Stuart-Moore, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. On 2nd March 1998, this Applicant was convicted in the High Court of three robberies and three thefts following a trial before Hartmann J. and a jury. He was sentenced on the following day to a total sentence of 12 years' imprisonment.

2. The Applicant now seeks leave to appeal against his conviction. The reasons are set out in his grounds of appeal, which amount to the same reasons as he gave in the trial for contesting the charges. In essence, what he says is that his involvement with the people who committed the robberies was an entirely innocent one. He had asked three men how to get to a refugee camp in order to meet up with a relative of his. They had offered him a lift in their taxi. During the course of the journey, they had got out of the taxi leaving him by himself in the vehicle, and it was at that moment that the police arrived and arrested him.

3. Today he has added a number of further matters which indicate, in effect, that there were weaknesses in the prosecution's case. The most important of those weaknesses is of course that the witnesses in the case were unable to identify him as having been involved in the robberies. There were two other matters of less importance concerned with what evidence had been given at the trial which failed to involve him in a direct way in the events of this case.

4. The transcript of the summing up has been provided to the court, and it is clear that the Applicant was accorded a meticulously fair trial. All the issues raised in the trial were fully covered by the judge for the jury to consider. The legal directions were given with impeccable accuracy.

5. The case presented against this Applicant was a strong one, and the jury clearly rejected his account of having been innocently caught up with the others who were responsible for these highly unpleasant tie-up robberies.

6. There is no merit whatsoever in the application and it must be dismissed. We shall order, on the ground that this was a wholly unmeritorious application, that three months of the time the Applicant has spent in custody shall not count towards his sentence.