HKSAR v. NGAI YIU CHING

 DCCC773/2010

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONGSPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 773 OF 2010

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you have been convicted after trail of the four counts in the indictment, the first being an offence of false imprisonment, and the second, third and fourth being separate offences of indecent assault.

2.  The circumstances of the offences and the background to them have been fully set out in my reasons for verdict and I do not wish to repeat them, save to say that you lured and tricked the victim, a young woman of 30 years of age, to this warehouse in Tuen Mun, detained her there against her will for somewhere in the region of 5 hours, in the course of which you tied her hands behind her back and subjected her to three separate humiliating acts of indecent assault, in relation to one of which you gagged her by pushing a flannel into her mouth

to prevent her from shouting.

3.  You took advantage of this young woman by gaining her trust and confidence to such a degree that you became sworn father and sworn daughter in February of last year, some 3 months before these offence. You lied to her that you were the owner of the warehouse company and you lied to her that you promised to give her HK$1 million for her mother to build a house in China.

4.  Gullible and naive the victim might have been, but this in no way mitigates your wicked behaviour to her at the time of these offence. You subjected her to what can only be described as a terrifying ordeal and betrayed the trust that she had put in you.

5.  With regard to the first offence, the false imprisonment, I adopt a starting point of 2 years’ imprisonment. I will increase this by one year to reflect the breach of trust that I have referred to, which is an aggravating feature, coming to a term of 3 years’ imprisonment on Charge 1.

6.  On each of the Charges 2, 3 and 4, I impose a sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment.

7.  Whilst each of these offences are of course separate offences, they were all committed very soon after one another and to that extent can be considered as part of the same incident.

8.  I therefore order that in respect of Charges 2, 3 and 4, the sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment is to run concurrently with each other but consecutively to the sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment on Charge 1, coming to a total sentence is 6 years’ imprisonment.