THE QUEEN v. YAU CHI KEUNG

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(Appellate Jurisdiction)

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 1597 OF 1989

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BETWEEN

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant plead guilty before Mr G.P. Muttrie to a charge of living on the earnings of prostitution and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, he now appeals against sentence.

2. The facts were that the appellant was found to be in a villa and introduced a Thai prostitute to an undercover police officer. He had no previous convictions of a similar nature.

3. The Magistrate stated that offences of this nature were very common in the Mongkok area and justify a sentence of general deterrence. He took nine months' imprisonment as the starting point and reduced that to six months' imprisonment for the plea of guilty.

4. Mrs Robertson who appears for the appellant submits that the Magistrate was wrong to impose a sentence of general deterrence. I disagree. The Magistrate was in the best position to know the occurrence of such offences in his area and I do not consider the imposition of a general deterrent sentence to be wrong in principle. It is further argued that if the offence did justify such a sentence, nine months' imprisonment as a starting point is too high.

5. I have been referred to the authorities of the R. v. Sui Wai Yin, M. A. 956/1989 where six months' imprisonment after trial was not found to be excessive and to R. v. Tam Yui Kwong, C. A. 323/1988 where the Court of Appeal reduced the sentence of 18 months' imprisonment to one of nine months' imprisonment. In the latter case, there was the aggravating feature of a mature ma using a sixteen year old girl as a prostitute. The court had obtained statistics which show the most common range of sentence for this type of offence as being between three to six months' imprisonment. The appellant was involved in the operation as an usher showing customers to the rooms of the prostitutes in the villa.

6. Having regard to the degree of criminality and the authorities, I do consider that the Magistrate started at too high a figure. On the basis that six months' imprisonment would have been a proper sentence after trial, I allow the appeal to the extent that the sentence of four months' imprisonment is substituted for that of the six months' imprisonment imposed by the Magistrate.