HKSAR v. WONG SZE CHUN

HCMA913/2002

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

(Appellate Jurisdiction)

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO.913 OF 2002

(ON APPEAL FROM TMCC 2478 OF 2002)

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J U D G M E N T

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1. The appellant had pleaded guilty before Mr D.I. Thomas to five offences. They were two charges of theft, one charge of forgery of documents, one charge of driving an unlicensed vehicle and one charge of using a vehicle without third party insurance. The appellant was sentenced to a total term of four months and twelve weeks; he sought to appeal against the sentence. He was represented before the learned magistrate but, on appeal, he was not legally represented.

2. The appellant had admitted the prosecution case as follows. PW1 lived in a village house with an adjacent open ground. PW1 enclosed it with wire fence and kept second-hand cars inside for sale. On 20 August 2002, at about 1 a.m., he found that a second-hand Honda and two sets of vehicle Hi Fi were missing. He made a report to the police and he also gave the description of the missing car to some of the sales agents.

3. Later PW2, an agent, received an offer from the appellant to sell a Honda for $5,000. It fitted the description of the missing car so he asked the appellant to bring the car for a view while he also made arrangement for PW1 to attend. When the appellant drove the vehicle to the destinated place, PW1 identified his car and he also recognized the appellant to be one of his neighbours. A report was made to the police and the appellant was later arrested. He made admissions to the police about stealing the car and the two sets of vehicle Hi Fi.

4. In a further interview, the appellant disclosed the following :

"... at small hours on 20th August 2002, he climbed over [the] iron wire entanglement of PW1's garage, found a bundle of keys including the ignition key of the private car and gate key of garage's gate, as well as two sets of vehicle Hi Fi inside the garage. Hence, he opened the gate and drove the private car away from the garage together with two sets of Hi Fi. He also admitted making an offer to PW2 to sell out the private car. After he took the private car, he returned home and used a pen to alter the expire-date of a vehicle licence JD 4527 from '21-05-2001' to '21-05-2003'. Thereafter, put the vehicle licence to the windscreen of the private car. The said licence was issued to his own private car JD 4527 in year 2001. He also put a pair of number plates KM 2665 which was belonged to his another private car to the front and rear of the private car."

5. On these admitted facts, the learned magistrate had rightly entered the convictions in respect of all the offences. The appellant had a number of criminal records, there were two in relation to the use of marked oil, and in 1998, he was convicted and sentenced for a drug offence.

6. In the Reasons for Sentence, the learned magistrate pointed out that he regarded the offences to be serious ones. For the first two charges of theft, whilst the method was unsophisticated, they involved an amount of planning. The magistrate stated that although all the offences had occurred on the same day, the subsequently attempt to disguise the vehicle through forgery, the driving of the unlicenced and uninsured vehicle were separate offences from the original theft. The learned magistrate had clearly set out the starting points adopted for the various offences. He reduced them to reflect the guilty pleas. The final sentence was reached by imposing a partially consecutive order. Further, the magistrate imposed a disqualification of 15 months for the 5th charge.

7. The appellant complained that the sentence imposed was too severe. I could not agree. I found that the sentence was neither too severe nor wrong in principle. If anything, the learned magistrate had been rather generous with the appellant and the sentence was on the low side given the circumstances of the offences involved. This appeal was devoid of merit, and must be dismissed.