HKSAR v. LIMBU SUMIT

DCCC 38/2025

[2026] HKDC 385

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 38 OF 2025

________________________

________________________

________________________

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

________________________

1.  The 1^st Defendant (“D1”)  pleaded guilty to a charge of assault with intent to rob.

Agreed summary of facts

2.  In the afternoon on 25 June 2024, PC28300 (“PW1”)  and his team were inside the security room of Chungking Mansions, Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui.  Through live CCTV cameras capturing the rear lane between Chungking Mansions and Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hong Kong (the “Rear Lane”), PW1 witnessed D1 and two other men surrounding Mr Liu who was lying on the ground.

3.  Shortly after, PW1 intercepted D1 and others.  Upon body search, PW1 found a folding knife from the back pocket of D1 (“Folding Knife”).  The Folding Knife has a length of around 16 cm when extended, including a blade of about 7 cm.

4.  Mr Liu was seen suffered minor abrasions on his lips and right eyebrow, and on his scalp.

5.  D1 was arrested on the same day.  Upon enquiry, Mr Liu was in possession of HK$10,590, CN¥563.5 and US$3,600.

CCTV footages

6.  CCTV footages at the Rear Lane captured, inter alia, the following: Mr Liu attended a currency exchange shop.  After placing some cash in his sling bag, he exited Chungking Mansions and entered the Rear Lane; tailing Mr Liu, D1 and two other men walked slowly passed the currency exchange shop and entered the Rear Lane; inside the Rear Lane, D1 stroked Mr Liu’s head with his right hand from behind and threw several punches at him.  D1 also tried to snatch PW1’s bag; the other two men observed the struggle between Mr Liu and D1 from around a metre away.

1^st Defendant’s personal background and mitigation

7.  D1 is now aged 17 (he was 16 at the time of the offence), single and with education level up to Form 4.  He has a clear record.  In mitigation, counsel submitted that D1 entered early guilty plea.  Although the 1^st Defendant displayed the knife, he did not use it to attack the victim.  He expressed remorse for the offence with mitigation letters.  He was under the influence of bad peers.  While D1 asked for immediate custodial sentence, the court may call for relevant sentencing reports before sentence.

Discussion

8.  The maximum sentence for present charge is life imprisonment.

9.  There is no sentencing guideline for assault with intent to rob.  As discussed during mitigation, according to the case of Mo Kwong Sang v The Queen [1981] HKLR 610 for armed robbery, the starting point would be 5 years’ imprisonment.

10.  There are 3 aggravating factors in the present case:

(a)  The 1^st Defendant attacked the victim with punches, causing him injuries;

(b)  He displayed the knife to the victim; and

(c)  The whole incident happened in public place.

11.  Should D1 be an adult, I consider that the starting point should be enhanced by 6 months, making it a total of 5 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. The sentence is reduced to 3 years and 8 months after 1/3 discount for his early guilty plea.  Assuming there’s further remission for good behaviour, D1 has to serve a substantive sentence of about 30 months. 

12.  I now consider the implication of section 109A of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance, i.e. whether there are alternatives to immediate custodial sentence. 

13.  In sentencing young offender, I have considered two cases from the Court of Appeal: SWS CAAR 1/2020 and SHY CAAR 7/2020.  In SHY, the Court of Appeal propounded that：

“G. Discussion

G1. General principles in sentencing of juvenile offenders

45. Section 11(2)  of the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance provides that no young person, i.e, a person who is, in the opinion of the court having cognizance of any case in relation to such person, 14 years of age or upwards and under the age of 16 years, shall be sentenced to imprisonment if such young person can be suitably dealt with in any other way. In other words, imprisonment is the last resort for sentencing young persons. As to other suitable options, section 15(1)  of the same ordinance stipulates the ways in which the court may deal with a convicted young person, which include imposing a probation order, sending him/her to a reformatory school, sentencing him/her to imprisonment or to detention in a training centre or to detention in a rehabilitation centre, and for a male offender, sentencing him to detention in a detention centre. These are all sentencing options alternative to imprisonment, which are complementary to the provisions which restrict the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment on young persons, so as to perfect the sentencing regime applied to young persons. Reference may be made to Wong Chun Cheong v HKSAR (2001)  4 HKCFAR 12, page 21C-D for the related statutory intent.

46. The court is required by the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance not to sentence any young person to imprisonment unless he cannot be suitably dealt with in any other way because it is always the principle in law that, as far as practicable, the main concern of the court would be giving young offenders, in particular juveniles, the chance to rehabilitate and passing a rehabilitation-oriented sentence. Since imprisonment focuses more on factors such as punishment and deterrence than rehabilitation, it would naturally be the last resort in sentencing. As to the non-custodial sentencing options, probation order being one of them, the main consideration and aim are rehabilitation, whereas punishment and deterrence are of minor consideration. Reformatory school, training centre, rehabilitation centre and detention centre are custodial sentences which serve the consideration and aim of rehabilitation on one hand and cater for sentencing factors such as retribution and deterrence on the other. The court in deciding which non-custodial sentencing option to adopt should consider the relevant statutes and applicable legal principles together with the actual circumstances of the case.

47. In sentencing, the court is required to consider all applicable sentencing factors and give appropriate weight before deciding a commensurate sentence: see paragraph 108 in Wong Chi Fung (Court of Appeal). This principle is similarly applicable to the sentence of young persons who have committed serious offences. Generally speaking, the court’s main considerations are in two folds. On one hand, as a matter of public interest, a sentence passed by the court in respect of serious offences has to be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence and the circumstances of the case in order to serve the purposes of protection of the public, punishment, open condemnation and deterrence. On the other hand, the young age of an offender is always a mitigating factor: see paragraph 84 of Wong Chi Fung (Court of Final Appeal). This is also a consideration of public interest because rehabilitation and reformation can bring the young person away from crime, which not only caters for his own welfare and future prospect but also benefits the community as a whole. Therefore, even when the offence is serious, the court in sentencing has to consider the young offender’s circumstances, background, welfare and rehabilitation needs. The court must carefully balance all relevant sentencing factors and decide what weight to accord to them before deciding an appropriate sentence.

48. In balancing various sentencing factors, as said above, the court would give young offenders, in particular young people, a chance to rehabilitate as far as practicable. However, this does not mean that the court focuses only on the youth factor and ignore other sentencing factors because the weight given to the youth factor would vary depending on the seriousness of the crime involved and the circumstances of the offence in each individual case. If, as a matter of public interest, the seriousness of the offence and the circumstances of the case call for a heavy or deterrent sentence, the offender’s young age and personal background would count very little or even pale into insignificance: Re Applications for Review of Sentences [1972] HKLR 370, 417; Law Ka Kit, paragraphs 27 and 29, because the need for a punitive or deterrent sentence far outweighs the rehabilitative need of the offender：see Wong [Chun] Cheong, page 22.

49. The above legal principles are basically similar to those stated in the guidelines of the UK Sentencing Council for sentencing children and young people and ‘The Beijing Rules’ (United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice)  cited by Mr Lee.”

The above legal principles are also applicable to young offenders under the age of 21.”

14.  In the present case, apart from imprisonment, there are other sentencing options suitable for young offender such as Rehabilitation Centre, Detention Centre and Training Centre.  In the light of D1’s age, I have called for Training Centre report before sentence.  In short, the intake officer opined that D1 is mentally and physically fit for detention in a Training Centre and that D1 committed the present offence in order to feed his bad drug habits.

15.  The comparison of the so called “3C” reports can be summarized as follows:

	Detention Centre		Training Centre	Rehabilitation Centre
Sex	Male[1]		No gender limitation	No gender limitation
Age	14 - 20[2]	21 - 24[3]	14 - 20[4]	14 - 20[5]
Detention period	1 – 6 months[6]	3 – 12 months[7]	6 months – 3 years[8]	3 – 9 months[9]
Post release supervision period	Not  exceeding 12 months[10]		3 years[11]	1 year[12]
Remarks	Not sentenced to prison/TC before[13]		No limitation	Not sentenced to prison, TC, DC, or DATC before[14]

16.  In further mitigation, the defence submitted that D1 still maintained his wishes to be imprisoned.  Detention in Training Centre could be as long as 3 years, in addition to a maximum of 3 years post release supervision period, which is no lighter than 30 months’ substantive imprisonment as said above.  As a result, in the light of D1’s age and two sentencing options here, vocational training in Training Centre and post release supervision period can assist D1 to sever his ties with bad peers would be in D1’s interest and to society.  In short, Training Centre is more reasonable and proportional to the seriousness of offence and the gravity of facts, and I so order.