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DCCC204/2011
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONGSPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 204 OF 2011
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Date: |
26 April 2011 at 3.38 pm |
Present: |
Mr Lenny Cheng, PP, of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR
Ms Belinda Ip of Lily Fenn & Partners, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant |
Offences: |
(1)-(2) Burglary (入屋犯法罪)
(3) Attempted burglary (企圖入屋犯法罪)
(4)-(6) Burglary (入屋犯法罪) |
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to five charges of burglary contrary to section 11(1)(b) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance being Charges 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 and one charge of attempted burglary contrary to section 11(1)(a) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance and section 159G of the Crimes Ordinance, being Charge 3.
2. All of the offences took place within a fairly short period of time, some two months between October and December 2010. Indeed, the first of these offences took place on 27 October, only some two weeks or so after your release from prison again for offences relating to burglary.
3. The premises which you broke into or attempted to break into were all commercial premises, restaurants or shops where typically you entered the storeroom or restroom of premises and prised open lockers where money and valuables were kept. The total amount of cash stolen by you from these premises was just less than $2,000.
4. In the cautioned interviews with the police conducted after your arrest you told the police that you had spent the money and discarded the PSP player, subject matter of Charge 1, and the mobile phone, subject of Charge 6.
5. You are 34 years of age and have a number of previous convictions; 13 in all, the last 4 of which are for burglaries. I am told that you are single and have broken off your relationship with your family with whom you were living and, as a result, after you were released from prison in October of last year you slept in the streets and burgled these premises to get money to spend on food.
6. Burglaries of commercial premises attract a starting point of 2½ years’ imprisonment. However, in R v Tong Hoi Fung [1988] 1 HKLR 610 the Court of Appeal has said that where there is more than one offence of a similar nature committed at different times it is right for the court to award a higher sentence than if there had been only one offence.
7. Accordingly, on each of these six charges I adopt a starting point of 3½ years’ imprisonment. I will discount this by one-third to take account of your plea of guilty, coming to a sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment on each charge. Due to the question of totality of sentence, I will order that these sentences run concurrently with each other.
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H H Judge Geiser |
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District Judge |
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