CRIMINAL CASE NO. 244 OF 2010
COURT: You have pleaded guilty to three counts; they are robbery, rape and non-consensual buggery. Your victim was a 16½-year-old girl.
The offence occurred back in January of the year 2000. She was returning to her home on an estate near Chai Wan at gone 5 in the morning. It was dark and quiet and you were waiting to rob someone. You had armed yourself with a knife to do so. You grabbed her from behind and you displayed the knife in front of her, declared robbery and took her away to the hillside several hundred metres away. She handed over cash, a ring and a watch.
That conduct was serious and I take a starting point for it of 6 years’ imprisonment after trial. Given the plea of guilty attracting a one-third discount, the sentence for that robbery is one of 4 years’ imprisonment.
Having robbed her, you then demanded oral sex. You made her strip naked. She wore just a coat against the cold weather. You raped her. You then had anal intercourse, then demanded more oral sex. Then there was further intercourse and there was alternate thrusting of the vagina and the anus. There was further oral sex.
Her will was obviously overborne by her fear of you with the knife that you held throughout the incident. You used it to hit at a tree at various points in the sexual misconduct. It is difficult to be exact as to how long it would have lasted but it looks like it was something in the region of half an hour.
It goes without saying that this was a bad rape. A weapon was displayed; there was an element of abduction; the age of the victim; the fact that the sex was unprotected; the fact that there was painful non-consensual buggery, as well as repeated demands for oral sex.
It is right to say that you did not physically injure the girl but the injury to her mental health and her general wellbeing is well set out in an unexaggerated victim impact statement. The effects upon her and upon her life were obviously of great significance. Your late arrest, when your DNA was run through the database last year, has obviously brought the matter to her attention again and obviously that has had the effect she describes in her statement. I am not sure if I added into the list of aggravations the fact that no condom was used and part of her worries has been the fear of AIDS.
What matters is the overall sentence that you should receive. The overall sentence after trial would have been one of 12 years. You earn a third discount for your plea. I have told you the sentence for the robbery, but the sentences for the rape and the non-consensual buggery will be 6 years and 8 months, being discounted for the plea from starting points of 10 years.
I shall make those sentences on Counts 2 and 3 of 6 years and 8 months concurrent to each other. Those sentences and the starting points do not reflect any element of aggravation by reason of the fact that the robbery also took place. What I shall do is order that the sentences of 6 years and 8 months commence after the expiry of 1 year and 4 months of the sentence on Count 1.
The total sentence is therefore one of 8 years’ imprisonment.