HKSAR v. CHAN YIP CHI

CACC 153/2001

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 153 OF 2001

(ON APPEAL FROM DCCC NO. 1181 OF 2000)

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J U D G M E N T

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1. I grant the Applicant leave to appeal against his sentence. The judge did not state what his overall starting-point was in the case of the Applicant, but it can be inferred from what he said about D1 that he took an overall starting-point of 6 years' imprisonment and discounted it by 50% to reflect the Applicant's pleas of guilty, his offer to give evidence against D2 and the totality principle. In my opinion, it is arguable that the overall starting-point was much too high, and that the appropriate overall starting-point, having regard to the fact that the Applicant had four counterfeit credit cards which he used in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain goods worth about $16,000.00, should have been in the region of 3 years' imprisonment: see Poon Cho Chu (CACC 55/2000).