THE QUEEN v. KING MAN-WING

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

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JUDGMENT

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Kempster, J.A.:

1. On 16th September of this year KUNG Man-wing, the applicant, was convicted by His Honour Judge Sanders, at the Kowloon District Court, of robbery. The circumstances were that during the afternoon of 17th August the applicant and another man flagged down a taxi. The applicant got into the back while his companion got into the front. The companion was holding a knife and threatened the driver with it. The applicant reached forward, took $300 from the driver's shirt pocket and $150 from a money box on the front seat. The two then made off. Two days later the taxi driver saw the applicant in a billard saloon and notified the police. He was arrested.

2. The judge sent for reports about the applicant who was only some 16 years old. They showed that he came from a broken home and a problem family and was suitable to be detained either in a Detention Centre or in a Training Centre. None the less on 2nd October the judge thought it appropriate, because this was an offence of robbery involving a knife, to send him to prison for three and a half years. The applicant seeks leave to appeal against that sentence.

3. The statutory provision inhibiting the imprisonment of a man of the applicant's age do not apply to a conviction for robbery. But we think that on general principles a Court should hesitate long before sending so young a man to mix with hardened adult or even adolescent criminals. This is just the sort of youth who would benefit both from the positive regime of a Training Centre and from the protracted period of supervision which in due course may well follow his release. It is in the interest of the community that he should be detained accordingly.

4. We allow the application for leave to appeal against sentence. We treat this as the hearing of the appeal and for the sentence of three and a half years imprisonment we substitute an order that the applicant be detained in a Training Centre.

5. There is, on the record, an application for leave to appeal against conviction. That application is wholly misconceived having regard to the applicant's plea of "guilty" and will be dismissed.