THE QUEEN v. SOONTHORN CHOOKIAT PRAVIT

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JUDGMENT

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Hon. Yang, C.J.:

1. The applicant pleaded guilty before Her Honour Judge Beeson to a charge of trafficking to Hong Kong in women and was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. It is against that sentence that he now seeks leave to appeal.

2. The admitted facts revealed that the applicant was arrested on the 24th November last year as he entered Hong Kong with a 24 year old Thai woman and posing as her husband. Previous to that the police had placed the applicant on the stop list as a result of information which the police received from another Thai woman arrested in a brothel, on the 17th November 1990, for overstaying her visitor's visa. The applicant had brought her into Hong Kong, also posing as her husband, on 10th November 1990.

3. The applicant admitted that he knew that the woman he was escorting into Hong Kong on the 10th November was in Hong Kong to work as a prostitute. He said that he was persuaded to do this by the promise of a salary stated to be HK$2,000 to act as escort. His duty was to hand the Thai woman over to two men who were responsible for receiving. her at Kai Tak. The judge found that his role as a pretended husband was presumably adopted to deflect a close scrutiny of the woman's reason for coming to Hong Kong.

4. Noting that the maximum penalty for this offence is seven years under s. 129 of the Crimes Ordinance, the judge took into consideration the fact that he was 41 years of age and employed as a salesman in Thailand. The applicant had a wife and four children and he was the sole bread-winner. The judge also took into account that this was the trafficking in respect of one woman only. One consideration which must have weighed heavily upon the mind of the learned judge, as it does upon us, is that here we have a case where a foreign national was helping a foreign woman to come to Hong Kong for the purpose of prostitution. Because of the seriousness of the offence the judge took the view that a sentence must be of a length, not only sufficient to defer the offender himself from a repetition of it, but also to serve as a warning to other people who might be tempted to commit the same type of offence. A starting point of two years' imprisonment was adopted as a general deterrence. She gave a discount of six months for the applicant's plea of guilty. The result was that he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.

5. This morning counsel for the applicant drew our attention to the maximum sentences provided in various sections of more or less the same type for offences under the Crimes Ordinance. He also drew our attention to a number of decisions where sentences were passed on different types of related offences in the Crimes Ordinance. We do not find the comparison of the sections and the sentences in different kinds of cases of particular assistance for here we are dealing with a specific offence under a specific section for which no tariff has been provided. The point of this case is the international element which is involved which justifies a very serious view being taken of the offence now under consideration.

6. Counsel for the applicant conceded that in some cases a general deterrence is justified even for a first offender. But he submits that even where a general deterrence is considered for a first offender in a suitable case, only a short custodial sentence should be imposed and that here the starting point of two years is manifestly excessive in all the circumstances.

7. We disagree in the light of the gravity of the offence. Having taken into consideration the international element involved, we are of the view that the starting point adopted by the trial judge of two years is entirely appropriate. The discount of six months also is appropriate. We would therefore dismiss the application for leave to appeal against sentence.