THE QUEEN v. LEE YAN CHI

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J U D G M E N T

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Silke V.P.:

1. The Applicant appeared for trial before Miss Esther Toh, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the District Court, on a charge sheet containing 17 charges. There was another, individual also on the same charge sheet are charged with him. None of the charges were joint.

2. The Applicant, Lee Yan Chi, who was D1, faced 6 charges and the other person 11 charges. Eventually after full trial the Applicant was convicted of 3 charges, the first, third and fourth. The first concerned the aiding and abetting of Tang Kit Fai, on 16th April 1988, in the use of a forged portugues passport; the third was of a similar nature and related to the same date and to Tang but it concerned a Hong Kong British passport; the fourth alleged the aiding and abetting Tang to possess the forged Hong Kong Pritish passport. The Applicant was sentenced to a period of 3 years' imprisonment on each of the charges to run concurrently giving a totality of 3 years.

3. In the face of this Court be has abandoned his application in respect of conviction. We are, therefore, only concerned with the application in respect of sentence.

4. The generality of the evidence was that Tang with his rife cane to Hong Kong it March 1988. They travelled on forged Portuguese passports. They desired to go to Canada A friend of theirs called "Pak Chai" introduces Tang to the Applicant. The journey to Canada was discussed. The Applicant said he would fix them up with other passports. The arrangements were that he was to buy the necessary air-tickets. This was to enable visas tote obtained. The Applicant would handle all the airport formalities and he told Tang that he could "rest easy". There were a number of meetings between Tang and the Applicant and one of the terms of the deal arranged between them was that the Portuguese passports, forger ones, were to given to the Applicant together with $10,000 are or air-ticket to Manila.

5. "Pak Chai" handed to Tang forged Hong Kong British passports for himself and his wife which in turn had got from the Applicant. The alterations to those passports court $5,000 The receipt for the Tangs air-tickets bought by the Applicant were found upon the Applicant's person on arrest.

6. On 16th April, a rather complicated procedure was carried out at the airport whereby the Tangs used her forged Portuguese passports to go through Immigration but then used the other passports inside the restricted area. It had been arranged that, after they had gone inside the restricted area, a person would nest them there and recover from then the forged Portuguese passports. This was done and, while the Tangs were waiting in the queue to board their aircraft, they were arrested.

7. The Applicant has suggested that he gain no benefit. This was clearly different from the evidence at trial. He suggested that his only motive was to assist a friend. That usually is quite clearly untrue. He says he is repentant are that he was co-operative with the Immigration authority. He has made a plea ad misericordiam in that he has a son in China and his wife, or girlfriend, has now abandoned him and the son.

8. He has two previous convictions, one for theft it 1986 and one for aiding one abetting the stay of an illegal immigrant in Hong Kong-when we understand to have been the girlfriend very shortly prior to conviction on these offences.

9. In passing the sentence she did, the trial judge seems to have accepted that the Applicant was a "runner" and a "small fish" in a syndicate but nevertheless he was a full participant in the matters which involved the use of forged passports. She considered this to be the Applicant's first serious offence but, in the light of the nature of the offence, she thought a deterrent sentence was necessary.

10. We have considered that which the Applicant has said to us and there was nothing that has been said that shows the totality of this sentence to be any way excessive The application for leave to appeal against sentence is, therefore, refused.