HKSAR v. SZE CHAU MING

CACC 425/98

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 425 OF 1998

(ON APPEAL FROM DCCC 610/98)

-----------------------

----------------------

J U D G M E N T

----------------------

Mayo J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. The Applicant was charged with four offences. The first was robbery, the second was remaining in Hong Kong without the permission of the Director of Immigration, the third was assaulting a police officer on duty and the fourth was being in possession of a small quantity of heroin.

2. The Applicant pleaded guilty to the second and fourth counts. He was found guilty on the other counts after a trial in the District Court before H.H. Judge Chua. He now seeks leave to appeal against these two convictions and against the total sentence of 5 years and 6 1/2 months imprisonment which was imposed upon him.

3. The victim of the robbery was a lady in her twenties and she gave evidence of being approached from behind at a flight of steps off Kung Yip Street, Kwai Chung in the afternoon of 21st March 1998 by a man who pressed against her. He covered her mouth and pointed a long knife at her face. The lady gave him a $500 note and a $100 note and the man then ran off. The lady immediately made a report to the police. Some minutes later police officers in the vicinity on duty received particulars of the robbery over their beat radios. Shortly after this they saw a man answering the description they had received emerge from a lift. They went across to question him. He produced a knife and attempted to assault one of the officers. A struggle ensued and eventually the man was subdued. The man in question was the Applicant. He was searched and a $500 note, a $100 note and the dangerous drugs referred to in the fourth count were found on his person.

4. After he was taken back to the police station he made a cautioned statement in which he admitted the robbery. At his trial he gave evidence that the statement had been beaten out of him. The Judge rejected this testimony and accepted the evidence of the police officers.

5. In his application before us his main complaint was the paucity of evidence against him and the absence of medical evidence concerning the injuries sustained by the police office allegedly assaulted by him.

6. Before us he didn't add anything of significance.

7. There is no merit in this application. The case against the Applicant was overwhelming and the application against conviction is dismissed.

Sentence

8. So far as the application for leave to appeal against the total sentences concerned the Judge calculated the sentences in this way:

9. She imposed the sentences of 5 years imprisonment on the 1st charge, 18 months imprisonment on the 2nd charge, 2 months on the 3rd charge and 1 month on the 4th charge. The Judge ordered that 13 months of the second sentence should run concurrent with the sentence imposed on the 1st charge, and the remaining 5 months would run consecutive to it. She further ordered that 1 1/2 months on the sentence imposed on the 3rd charge would run consecutive to the second sentence, while half the month of the third sentence and 1 month of the fourth sentence would run concurrent with the first sentence, so that the total to be served would be 5 years and 6 1/2 months.

10. The Applicant has a bad record. He has transgressed in a similar manner on four previous occasions.

11. The sentences imposed were not a day too long. This application is also without merit. We order that two months of the time he has spent in custody will not count towards the sentences he served.