HKSAR v. TONG LING LING

THE COURT OF APPEAL

1997, No.323
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Power, V.-P. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. In this matter the applicant faced charges of burglary and of remaining without permission in Hong Kong. The burglary particularized that he, having entered a building known as No.8 Ko Hang Tsuen in Mai Po on 6th March 1997, stole $1,331, an amount of jewellery, clothing, student's cards and other miscellaneous items. It seems clear that he took whatever portable items he found on the premises. The other charge alleged that on the same day he was in Hong Kong without the authority of the Director of Immigration. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years on the burglary charge and to fifteen months on the unlawful remaining. He now makes an application for leave to appeal against those sentences.

2. The facts are all too familiar. The householder, on returning to her home at 4 p.m. on 6th March, found the windows of the kitchen and of a room on the ground floor broken and the premises ransacked. The police having been called conducted a search and found the applicant asleep in a cottage some 200 metres away. The applicant after arrest admitted that he sneaked into Hong Kong on the evening of 5th March. He said to the police, as he has said to us today, that he broke into the premises because he was hungry.

3. The judge took three years as a starting point for the burglary charge and gave a discount of one-third for the plea of guilty. That was a proper sentence. He imposed what he described as the usual sentence of 15 months on the unlawful remaining charge. That also was a proper sentence. He rightly, in our view, made those sentences consecutive. No criticisms can properly be made of the overall sentence of three years and three months and the application must, therefore, be dismissed.