HKSAR v. LI SHANG HAI

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1997, No. 219
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Mayo, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. The Applicant pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to forge US$100 denomination bank notes between July 1988 and July 1989. He was sentenced to 5 years and 2 months' imprisonment by Deputy Judge Lugar-Mawson.

2. One of the significant features of this case is that when the Authorities became aware of the offence, the Applicant fled to China. When he was there he conducted what appears to have been a successful business.

3. Be that as it may he was finally arrested by the Chinese Authorities who had been in communication with the Authorities here and remanded in custody for two months prior to his return to Hong Kong. It is evident from the Judge's reasons for sentence that he did give the Applicant credit for the 2 months he was remanded in China.

4. It would appear from the rather lengthy agreed facts that while the Applicant was not one of the main instigators of the conspiracy he did nonetheless assume a fairly important role in it. His main function was to act as a financier and front man.

5. He invested (300,000 in the scheme and undertook the negotiations for the leasing of office premises which were to be used.

6. It also needs to be borne in mind that the operation was a comparatively sophisticated and major one involving the production of a quantity of counterfeit US$100 bills. This was done at factory premises in Kwai Chung.

7. The Judge adopted a starting point of 8 years' imprisonment. He gave the Applicant the full one-third discount for his plea and an additional discount of two months to take into consideration the time spent by the Applicant in prison in China.

8. He was not however prepared to give the Applicant any credit for the fact that a number of years had elapsed since the commission of the offence. As it had been the Applicant's own decision to flee to China we fully agree with the approach adopted by the Judge.

9. The Applicant relies upon the following matters in his grounds of appeal:

"(1) He claimed to the Judge did not consider the enormous pressure experienced when I jumped bail for many years.

(2) The fact that I had been a law-abiding (citizen) for many years had not been considered.

(3) I was not the mastermind in this case. The nature of the case was not the worst or the most serious one amongst similar cases.

(4) The Judge did not consider that my family member(s) should be taken care of, and I was the main bread-winner of my family."

10. He supplemented this by a further letter in which he suggested that he should have been given an additional discount for his co-operation with the police and that as it is normally the practice for prisoners to receive remission of one-third of their sentences he should have received a further discount of one month in respect of the two months he was imprisoned in China.

11. There is nothing in any of the matters raised by the Applicant. The Judge would have been mindful of all of the matters referred to in the original grounds of appeal and attached appropriate weight to them.

12. As to the supplemental matters there is also no merit in these. The one-third discount he was given takes into account the co-operation he gave the police. This, it should be said, does not amount to more than a disclosure, which did not impress the judge as being a fully frank one, of the circumstances of the offence.

13. The Applicant was perhaps fortunate to receive the discount of two months he did having regard to the fact that the Applicant was a fugitive from justice. However, this was solely a matter for the Judge.

14. There is nothing in this application and it is dismissed.