CHIU WAI-CHUN v. R.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1994, No. 159
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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1. Mortimer, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court) The applicant, Chiu Wai-chun, was convicted on 31st March 1994 in the District Court of two offences. The first, of assisting others to enter into Hong Kong illegally; and secondly, of being an illegal immigrant herself. She was sentenced for those two offences to three years imprisonment on the first charge; and to fifteen months imprisonment on the second charge. Those sentences were to run concurrently, making three years in all. She seeks leave to appeal against both the convictions and the sentences.

2. We deal first with the application for leave to appeal against conviction. Her grounds for that are that she did not do it. She repeats what she said in the court below. The facts were these. The applicant brought two pregnant women through the check-point on the Chinese side at Sha Tau Kok. Later she brought two others through there. Two of the women gave evidence against her in the court below. There were discrepancies in the accounts which those two ladies gave. The applicant gave evidence herself, suggesting that a man called Choi had been responsible. The judge considered the evidence with some care and in some detail. He accepted the evidence presented by the Crown. This showed that this was a planned operation. The five, including the applicant, gathered in Sha Tau Kok Village on the Chinese side, waited until the border was unmanned and then led by the applicant crossed over to catch a minibus. The applicant provided the fares for the others. The minibus was stopped not very far away and two were caught and taken off the bus. Later it was to pass through a police and immigration check-point. So led by the applicant, the two others alighted from the bus to make a detour round that check-point on foot. But they were caught.

3. In fact, the applicant does not advance any arguable ground here. The judge considered with great care the evidence he heard. We have considered the reasons for verdict ourselves. There is no ground which we can define as a basis upon which we can grant leave to appeal against conviction. That application is refused.

4. So far as sentences are concerned, this was not simply the case of an illegal immigrant coming across the border as the applicant was convicted also of assisting the others to come into Hong Kong. In those circumstances the sentence had to reflect that matter. For the offences upon which the applicant was found guilty, those were perfect proper sentences. The judge made them concurrent and in the result the sentences were neither wrong in principle nor were they manifestly excessive. They were proper sentences in the circumstances. Leave to appeal against those sentences is refused.