THE QUEEN And CHENG Yuk-kwei

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

No. 266 of 1987
(Criminal)

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JUDGMENT

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Hunter, J.A.:

1. On 11^th May of this year the applicant Cheng Yuk-kwei pleaded guilty before his Honour Judge Caird in the Hong Kong District Court to 30 counts in an indictment. The first three counts related to operating an illegal chit fund contrary to the Chit Fund Business (Prohibition) Ordinance. The three funds in question were operated as follows; the first from August 1983 to August 1986; the second from July 1984 to August 1986; and the third from December 1984 to August 1986.

2. The remaining 27 counts were of obtaining money by deception. Those counts arose in this way. The applicant was the operator of these 3 chit funds. As such it was his function to collect money from the fund members, whenever, as should normally have happened monthly, there was a successful bidder for the fund. But it would seem that on no less than 27 separate occasions (split between these 3 funds), he obtained the money from members of the fund by asserting that there had been a successful bidder, when there had in fact been no such successful bidder at all.

3. In this way he obtained over a period which seems to go back to 1984 a sum of no less than $738,771. These matters came to light when first of all he disappeared, and then surrendered himself to the police. As I have indicated he pleaded guilty to these offences. These matters of mitigation were very much in the mind of the trial judge who sentenced him to 6 months on each of the first 3 counts, which sentences were consecutive to each other, and to a total of two years concurrent on each of the 27 counts of deception. The total sentence is 3½ years imprisonment, and it is against that total sentence, that the applicant seeks leave to appeal.

4. In our judgment there can be no criticism of the judge’s sentence at all. Throughout this period of operating these 3 chit funds the applicant was in a position of trust. He stole these monies from people who trusted him and who had been his friends for a long time. This court has repeatedly said that in those circumstances an immediate custodial sentence is inevitable.

5. Secondly this conduct continued for about 3 years involving as I said no less than 27 deceptions. In that period the applicant misappropriated nearly three quarters of a million dollars. There is no way in which this sentence can be criticized by this court, and the application is rejected.