THE QUEEN v. LI CHI-MING

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JUDGMENT

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Mortimer JA (giving the judgment of the Court): On 18 July 1996 the applicant pleaded guilty to seven counts of burglary, one count of handling and one of robbery before His Honour Judge Gould. He was sentenced to a total of 4 years and 3 months. He applies for leave to appeal against sentence.

The offences

2. The offences took place between 13 September 1995 and 8 November 1995. The seven burglaries were all of domestic premises at a time when the occupiers were out. What happened was that he entered the premises, ransacked them and stole money, jewelry or watches. The handling offence took place on 23 September 1995 when he received two stolen 'Rolex' watches from a similar burglary and pawned them.

3. The robbery was a lift robbery of a woman on her way home from work at about 6.30 pm. No weapons were produced by him but he took from he her gold necklace. The total value of items not recovered is about $200,000.

4. The judge in sentencing considered whether a sentence of detention centre or training centre would be appropriate. But he said rightly that both sentences would be an inadequate response by the court. And obviously, probation was inappropriate for this scale of offending.

5. These offences, although they did not take place over a very extended period, took place between September and November 1995. They were persistent, professional and up to a point they were successful. The robbery, although not the most serious type of robbery, is a very serious offence - attacking a woman and robbing her in a lift.

The sentences

6. So far as the burglaries were concerned, the judge took as a starting point of 6 years and reduced that to 3 years and 9 months, taking into account the number of offences. For the handling offence, he reduced the sentence of 3 years to 2 years and 3 months concurrent. He made the sentence of 3 years, which had been reduced from 4 years for the robbery, partly consecutive. He was right to do that because robbery is a different type of offence and requires additional punishment.

The application

7. The applicant put forward a number of grounds which he asks this Court to consider. He said that he was not 21 and did not know the law, and did not know that his conduct had such serious consequences. These are serious matters. A young man of his age must have known that he was committing serious professional crime. He says that since then he has turned over a new leaf.

8. But these sentences were entirely justified by the crimes that had been committed. The judge, having considered all the circumstances of the offence and the offender, rejected quite rightly the choice of detention centre or training centre.

9. This application is refused.