THE QUEEN v. NG KAN-LANG

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JUDGMENT

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Mortimer, J.A.: On 19th September 1992 the applicant was working as a shroff at the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club Off Course Betting Centre at 101 Jaffe road. He worked there under the supervision of a cashier but he had his own counter. During his working hours, he issued eight cash vouchers for $10,000 for which he had received no money. Those cash vouchers were cashed elsewhere. It follows that there must have been someone else involved who has never been caught. He had to account to his supervisor when he went off duty. The full extent of the default was not discovered until some time later but he had disappeared. He was eventually arrested. On 9th January 1995, apparently the case had been delayed because he was involved in a road accident for which he had to receive treatment, he appeared before Deputy Judge Davies. He advanced the mitigation that he had committed the offence because he was in fear of creditors and that he knew he would be caught.

2. The judge rightly described this as a breach of trust case. Also, he noted that it was no excuse for stealing from his employers that he was in fear of his creditors. He should have sought the assistance of the police. If any of his creditors were involved in the offence, then he had not said anything to the police about that.

3. The judge took two years as the starting point for the sentence and then reduced it by six months for his plea of guilty. Here, the applicant advances the same matters that were advanced before, pointing out that he was certain to be caught and that he was under threat. He also asked us to take into account his family circumstances for which of course this Court has sympathy. However, our task on an application for leave to appeal against sentence is to consider the case and the way in which the judge approached it together with the sentence he passed. We can only interfere with the judge's discretion on sentence if the sentence is either wrong in principle or manifestly excessive. In this case the sentence passed was neither of those things and indeed this application is wholly without merit. The application is refused and being an application which is wholly without merit, there will be a loss of time of three months.