THE QUEEN v. WONG TAK-CHI

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JUDGMENT

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Sir Alan Huggins, V.-P.:

1. This is an application by the Attorney General for a review of sentences imposed by Deputy Judge Daniel Fung in the District Court for offences of claiming to be a member of a triad society and two of lending money at exorbitant rates. The Respondent was in fact charged with other offences arising out of the same circumstances: those were charges of robbery and another four charges of lending money at excessive rates. He was acquitted on those charges. The sentences imposed were six months' imprisonment suspended for eighteen months for the triad society offence, and fines of $2,500 or three months' imprisonment for each of the money lending offences of which he was convicted.

2. The submission is that in respect of the claiming to be a member of a triad society the judge was wrong to suspend the sentence. It is accepted that there is no tariff which has been imposed for such offences, and we have no intention of laying down any tariff ourselves: each case must be considered on its own merits. Claiming to be a member of a triad society may be as serious as actually being a member: the Legislature has, as Mr. Bruce points out, laid down the same sentence. It is therefore necessary to consider the facts of each case.

3. In the present case the Respondent lent money to the victim on two occasions: on the first occasion it was a sum of $1,000 to be repaid in one week with $800 interest and on the other a sum of $1,500 similarly, to be repaid at an interest rate in excess of 1000%. The whole matter arose out of these loans, which were made by the Respondent when he was acting as an attendant at a mahjong school. He lent the money to a customer who had lost money playing mahjong, but there was no evidence of a money-lending business. The first sum was in fact repaid, the second was not. At a later date they happened to meet, and the Respondent was found to have asked for the money, to have said something which was interpreted as meaning that he was a member of the 14K triad society and to have said something else to the effect that there was a group of men in the vicinity, the implication being that they would render assistance, probably of a violent nature, if the money was not repaid.

4. The learned judge in his Reasons for Sentence said this:

 

"Bearing in mind the fact that the 1st Accused" (and I should have mentioned that this Respondent was charged with another man) "is a first offender and accepting Defence counsel's submission that the 1st Accused's utterance of being No.14 was more an excessive in bravado than something more sinister (an observation that appears to be borne out by the evidence given at the trial) and that the utterance was not attended by more substantive threats or by physical violence, I sentence him to 6 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months."

Precisely what the learned judge was intending to convey is not clear, and we say only that in our view there was a clear threat contained in what was said. If we had been trying this case ourselves it may well be that we would not have suspended the sentence. Certainly if an immediately custodial sentence had been imposed for claiming to be a member of a triad society, none of us would have thought it right that we should interfere. However, there were circumstances which made this a borderline case and we are not disposed to interfere with the suspension.

5. The case for the Crown in respect of the money lending is that there should have been an immediate custodial sentence in respect of such a gross overcharging. We are not prepared to lay down any such principle. We are inclined to think that the sentence was a lenient one and that a heavier fine might well have been justified. We do not, however, have any note of any inquiry into the means of the Respondent, and the Applicant has not sought an increase in the fines. We are not disposed to interfere with these sentences either.

6. The application therefore will be refused.

24th December 1986