THE QUEEN v. NG KWAI WING AND ANOTHER

BETWEEN

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J U D G M E N T

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Fuad, V.-P. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. On 7th April 1989, Ng Kwai Wing and Lam Chi Chung were convicted of two offences with which they were jointly charged by His Honour Judge Longley in the District Court. The offences were blackmail and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Ng was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment for the blackmail and 1 years' imprisonment for the assault; the judge ordered the sentences to run consecutively. In respect of Lam, a training centre order was made.

2. Initially both the applicants applied for leave to appeal against their convictions. Ng abandoned his application for leave to appeal against conviction before the appeal came on for hearing and today, when he began to address us, Lam also abandoned his application for leave to appeal against conviction. As regards the sentences, Lam had applied for leave to appeal against sentence within the time allowed by the rules but Ng was out of time.

3. In Ng's application for leave to appeal against sentence out of time his grounding affirmation says that his counsel had first advised him to appeal against conviction because he had a good chance of having the conviction quashed, however later counsel had advised him to appeal against sentence. He added:

"At present, I am abandoning my appeal against conviction and applying for leave to appeal against sentence having missed the deadline for appeal I hereby apply for an extension of time for appeal against sentence out of time."

4. We are satisfied that no good grounds have been shown and therefore we refuse Ng the leave he seeks.

5. As regards the training centre order made in respect of Lam, it seems to us that he has no reason whatever for complaint. The case was a very serious one and, as the judge noted, "far from uncommon in Hong Kong."  Last year on more than one occasion two hair-dressing saloons owned by the victim in different places in Lai Muk Street were damaged by thugs. On the day in question, which was 10th July 1988, Law visited one of the premises and demanded that the victim go to a certain restaurant to see Ng. The victim first refused to go but, worried about what might be the consequences of his refusal, eventually did go to the restaurant. Ng was not there, so the victim returned to his own saloon. Shortly afterwards, Lam and Ng together went to it with another man and they abused the victim for not going to the restaurant as he has been told to do. They told him that because of this he would have to pay $1,000 a month per saloon - clearly as protection money.  When the unfortunate victim referred to an agreement reached when he had earlier been threatened when the arrangement was that he would pay something less, $500 a month, the three men attacked him. Fortunately he was not very seriously injured but he did suffer abrasions on the palm of one of his hands and on left leg. He had a swelling on his right hand and his other leg was also hurt

6. The judge expressed the view in his Reasons for Sentence that what made this particular type of blackmail so pernicious was victims were often too frightened to go and report to the police and he rightly observed, in our view, that it was a duty of the Courts to make it clear that this sort of conduct could not be tolerated. He also made the point that in the instant case the blackmail was aggravated by the assault on the victim.

7. After having explained why he had imposed sentences of imprisonment upon Ng, about Lam the judge said that he was prepared to take a different course because he was about 2 years younger than Ng, being aged about 20, and it was clear from the evidence that Lam was acting as his subordinate. The judge had a probation officer's report on Lam and a detention and training centre report which indicated that he was suitable for detention in a training centre. The judge's decision on sentence cannot be assailed. Lam's application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.