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DCCC701/2012
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 701 OF 2012
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HKSAR |
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v. |
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Lau Yun-keung |
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| Date: |
8 October 2012 at 10.08 am |
| Present: |
Mr Sharman Lam, SPP, of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR |
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Mr Lee King-chung, Alexander, of Li & Partners, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant |
| Offence: |
Burglary (入屋犯法罪) |
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. The defendant has pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary, committed on 30 June 2012.
2. He entered as a trespasser the office building of Tung Fong Rehabilitation House, which is in Kwu Tong, and whilst in there he stole a ring, two mobile phones, three bank passbooks and three bank cards.
3. The rehabilitation home is a home for mental patients. There are three blocks: two of them are residential and one is an office block, and that can only be accessed using a security lock.
4. The defendant is a resident of the rehabilitation home. I understand he has been there since 2008.
5. On 30 June 2012 at around 12.40 am, whilst on night duty, one of the staff could not find the defendant in his room.
6. She went to the office block and opened the office door and found the defendant searching for some bank passbooks of other inmates in the drawer at the office desk.
7. Upon seeing the member of the staff, the defendant tried to hide himself and rushed out of the office and climbed out of the gate and ran away.
8. It was found that the upper long drawer of the office desk had been prised open. A window of the office was also prised, with its mosquito net broken.
9. Outside the office, were found a washing glove, a screwdriver, a wooden ladder and a saw. It was suspected that these items had been used in order to gain access to the premises.
10. Mr Man (PW2) is the warden of the centre and only he has the key to open the drawers in the office. He said that the drawers inside the office had been locked at 7.50 pm the previous night.
11. Upon inspection, he discovered that a platinum ring valued at $680, two mobile phones valued at $950, three bank passbooks and three ATM cards belonging to various inmates were missing.
12. The defendant was later arrested and, under caution, he asked for a chance. He led the police to recover one of the stolen mobile phones from the drawer next to his bed in the residential dormitory. He said he had thrown away the other stolen items onto a street in Sheung Shui.
13. Eventually, just one mobile phone was recovered, a bank passbook and an ATM card, which were found in the common area of the rehabilitation home.
14. None of the other stolen property was recovered.
15. The defendant has been before the court on 14 previous occasions for a variety of offences, including offences of dishonesty, possession of poison, and he has previously served sentences in a detention centre and in a training centre in short periods of imprisonment.
16. I was told in mitigation that the defendant is aged 36. He was born in Hong Kong and educated to Form 2 standard.
17. He previously worked as a construction worker until 2008 and then he became problems because of drug addictions and addiction to cough syrup, and this has led to the psychiatric problems which he now has and that is the reason he is living in this rehabilitation home.
18. I was told in mitigation that the defendant found the window to the office was not secure and was tempted to enter because of that.
19. I did not believe that. Given the time the offence was committed and given the fact that the window was forced and the drawer was forced, this was a deliberate attempt to get into these premises to steal the items the subject of the charge and clearly it was to get money for his drug addiction problems.
20. I adjourned the case on the last occasion so that I could have an advantage of a background report.
21. The defendant’s elder sister, Madam Lau was contacted, and she asked for the parents not to be contacted because they had been kept in the dark about the present offence.
22. According to Madam Lau, the accused was addicted to drugs for over 10 years, suffering from the ill effects of cough syrup and methamphetamine.
23. The defendant had exhibited hallucination sympathies and was required to receive psychiatric treatment since 2001. Because of his drug problem, it was arranged that he should reside at the rehabilitation home since 2008, and despite periods of incarceration, he still continued to take the cough syrup and, in order to acquire money to sustain his vice habit, he repeatedly violated the law.
24. She hoped that the defendant would learn a lesson from his present incarceration and start a new leaf upon his discharge from prison.
25. I note that, notwithstanding the number of offences the defendant has committed in the past, sentence of imprisonment imposed previously had been relatively short.
26. The usual sentence for an offence of this kind is a sentence of 2½ years’ imprisonment.
27. Having considered all the factors that have been placed before me, I see no reason to depart from that guideline nor do I see any reason to increase it.
28. The defendant will be given credit for his guilty plea, so he will go to prison for 20 months.
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