COURT: The defendant, Chung Kin-wai, faced one count of burglary contrary to section 11(1)(b) and 4 of the Theft Ordinance, Cap 210.
The particulars of the offence was that on the 16th day of August 2013, he, together with Lu Yong-bing and other persons unknown, having entered the Oriental Watch Company situated at Shop No G02, Holiday Inn Golden Mile, Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, as trespassers, stole therein 246 watches of a total value of $6,560,000.
The defendant pleaded guilty before a magistrate and was committed to the Court of First Instance, High Court, for sentence.
The admitted facts disclosed that at 6.22 am on 16 August 2013, the burglar alarm of the Oriental Watch Company rang. A security guard of the shopping mall arrived and found that the glass main door and some of the glass display cases had been smashed and the premises had been ransacked. A report was made to the police. The manager of the company later confirmed that 246 Tudor watches valued at $6,560,000 had been stolen.
The police seized a hammer and bloodstained newspaper fragments from its handle. The police also seized various bloodstained glass fragments from the floor and a shopping cart. 17 blood samples were collected at the premises. The defendant was captured by the CCTV installed inside the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Shopping Mall and inside the watch company. The defendant’s DNA was found in the blood samples obtained from the glass fragments.
On 2 January 2014, the defendant was arrested for burglary. Under caution the defendant admitted that Ah Hung had asked him to assist and he only played a small part. During subsequent video recorded interviews the defendant admitted he was in need of money and he had asked Ah Hung whether there was work for him. Ah Hung asked him if he had the courage to commit burglary and he agreed.
On the material day he met up with two mainlanders and they were picked by a van. The three of them were dropped near the watch company in question. One of the mainlanders made use of the shopping cart. One mainlander smashed the glass main door of the watch company and all three went in. After the glass of the display cases were smashed by one mainlander all three of them stole watches on display. They then all fled. He later received $70,000 as reward.
The defendant is a married man, 32 years of age. He is not a man of clear record. He started to appear before the court since 1996 and had a total of seven criminal convictions, that is not including his breaches of Probation Order and Community Services Order recorded against him. Of the seven, three were for theft and using a false instrument. There is no previous conviction of burglary.
The defendant was educated up to Form 2 level and had worked as a transportation worker and a driver. Miss Juliana Chow, mitigating on behalf of the defendant, informs me that the defendant came from a single-parent family and he had never met his father. He was cared for by different people until he was reunited with his mother when he was in secondary school.
Referring to the defendant’s previous convictions, Miss Chow submitted that the defendant started his criminal activities since he was 16 and appeared to have gone off the rails in his 20s. However, since 2002 he was able to keep out of trouble except a relatively minor incident for failing to obey a witness summons or court order, for which the defendant was sentenced to 28 days’ imprisonment. The defendant still maintains that he did not purposefully disobey that court order as he had moved house.
Miss Chow stressed the fact that the defendant faced one single charge and he was not a professional burglar. He was not the mastermind and he had cooperated with the police immediately upon his arrest and pleaded guilty at the earliest possible time. Miss Chow asked me to be as lenient as possible to this defendant.
A person convicted of burglary on indictment is liable to be sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. I will quote the judgment in Cheng Wai Kai CACC 338 and 339/2007 and Fan Kit Hung [2009] 6 HKC 314 in the judgment, but I will not read them out now because I have just read them out in the other case, but I will refer to the aggravating factors in Fan Kit Hung as factor number seven in this case. So in the present case I bear in mind the following aggravating factors are present:
Factor one, the offence was clearly carefully planned and skilfully executed, heavy instrument in the form of a heavy-duty hammer was used;
Two, the offence was committed by the defendant with one known person and other persons unknown;
The third factor was the offence targeted at a watch company situated in a hotel mall in Tsim Sha Tsui and involved over 6 million-worth of watches;
Factor five, the defendant had previous convictions, though I do bear in mind that there was no similar record; and
Factor seven, substantial damage was done to the victimised premises in the course of the burglary.
I also bear in mind that properties were not recovered in this case.
I am of the view that having considered all the circumstances of this case and taking into account all that was said on the defendant’s behalf, the appropriate sentence after trial would have been one of 5 years.
With a full one-third discount the sentence is one of 40 months, 3 years and 4 months.