THE QUEEN v. TSANG CHI KEUNG AND ANOTHER

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J U D G M E N T

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Penlington, J.

1. These are appeals against sentence, the 1st appellant having now abandoned an appeal against conviction. The appellants were the 4th and 6th accused in the trial below in the High Court some of the charges being rape of which the 1st appellant was acquitted. The other charges such as taking a conveyance without authority would not have been brought in the High Court but the offences were all tried together.

2. There is no need co go into the facts of this matter in detail as it was a very long trial involving a large number of charges. On the more serious those of rape, the 1st appellant (I will refer to him here as the 4th defendant as he was below) was acquitted but he was convicted of two charges of blackmail one of false imprisonment and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. This is one of the cases that had become so sadly familiar to us in Hong Kong of young girls who have had sexual intercourse with the accused persons have then been blackmailed by them and forced in to prostitution to satisfy those demands. There is so doubt whatever that, so far as the 4th defendant was concerned, those girls were merely property to be used to obtain money for himself.

3. There wave two charges of blackmail, one involving a demand for $54,000 one of $19,000, and while the jury clearly were not prepared to accept the girl's uncorroborated evidence of rape, they did accept that she was blackmailed, the threats being that if she did not pay over these very large sums of money she would be slashed with razor blades or burnt with acid in either event being disfigured. The 4th defendant was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment on each of those charges, concurrent. The 16th and 17th charges related to false imprisonment and assault. This was where the girl's boy friend intervened and as a consequence of that intervention he was hold prisoner and then taken to a hillside by a including both these applicants, where he was assaulted, thrown down the hillside and left unconscious.   The trial judge quite rightly regarded the assault as serious and imposed a sentence of 2½ years imprisonment, the maximum being 3 years, consecutive to the sentences for blackmail.

4. There was very little to be said for either of the applicants on these charges. They both had previous convictions involving violence, both of them exercised their rights to defend the matter, and, in particular with the 4th defendant, there has not been at any stage the slightest sign of any regret for what he has done. The sentences passed for the blackmailing were, if anything, lenient. The sentence for the assault occasioning actual bodily harm was near the maximum for that offence but the facts of the case amply justified it. It was also a totally different offence relating to another person on another occasion and while the background to it lay in the blackmailing the sentences clearly were rightly made to be consecutive. Having looked at the totality of 4½ years in respect of the 4th defendant; we see nothing wrong whatever with that total sentence and indced it may well be that he was fortunate.

5. As far as the 6th defendant is concerned, he was only concerned of one charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one charge of taking a conveyance without authority. He has previous convictions for offences involving violence and also taking a vehicle Without authority. We do not consider that the sentences passed of 2½ years and 6 months consecutive were wrong in principle and, on the facts of this case, were perfectly justified. The only point which gave us pause for thought vas the severity of those sentences as compared with the 4th defendant who was the ring leader and played a much more dominant role. We do not however consider that disparity is such as to cause the 6th defendant to bear such a sense of grievance as would justify our interference.

6. Both applications for leave to appeal are refused.