R. v. KOO MING

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1996, No 608
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Liu, J.A.:

1. The Applicant faced one count of robbery. He pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. He feels aggrieved by his sentence and seeks leave to appeal against it.

2. The particulars of his offence are: early in the morning at about 2:00 a.m. in January 1995, a gang of whom the Applicant was one climbed to a balcony of private domestic premises. The glass doors were broken through. When the commotion woke up an occupant, he tried but unsuccessfully to prevent the gang from entering the premises. Most of the members of the gang carried knives and various other sorts of weapons. Upon entry, they tied up the male occupant and herded the others from their beds into one room. Then they ransacked the premises.

3. A neighbour was also alerted by the commotion. He saw what happened and called the police. When the police arrived, members of the gang put up resistance and threatened to harm the occupants whom they proclaimed as their held hostages. The gang even displayed one of the occupants on the balcony with the knife pointed at him. It was an ugly scene. The confrontation lasted an hour and a half before the members of the gang finally surrendered to the police. It was very fortunate that none of the hostages was harmed except for, of course, the male occupant who had been tied up. He suffered minor injuries to his neck and wrists. It was nevertheless a traumatic experience for all.

4. The Applicant was, what we would say, caught red-handed. It was, so the judge observed, a bad case involving invasion of private premises at night by a large armed gang. The gang were not deterred by the resistance put up by an occupant. They gained entry by force, subdued the male occupant and kept the rest in one room under surveillance. Even after the arrival of the police, they did not immediately surrender to them. The Applicant was a member of that gang, and it is quite unnecessary to delineate the role he played in the robbery. The only mitigating factor in his favour was his guilty plea.

5. The judge adopted a starting point of nine years. In the circumstances of the "bad case", he found it only possible to reduce it by two years and the applicant was given a 7-year term to serve. In addition to his home-made grounds of appeal, the applicant emphasizes to-day that no one was in fact harmed. The judge took that into account. His sentence would have been heavier if any of the occupants had sustained injuries. But the occupants were intimidated and put through a harrowing time. He tells this court that his parents are old and that his wife has gone back to her home, leaving a young child who needs care and attention.

6. We have also paid regard to all this submitted to us today, but none of his circumstances would allow us to interfere with the sentence passed upon him by the judge. The 7 years' imprisonment given him by the judge is neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive. In the circumstances, his application for leave to appeal against sentence must be denied. And we refuse it.