THE QUEEN v. NG CHIU FAI

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JUDGMENT

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Sir Alan Huggins, V.-P.:

1. This Applicant seeks leave to appeal against his sentence of five years' imprisonment on a charge of robbery. He was one of four men who were originally involved in this offence. The other three were arrested either at the scene or shortly afterwards and were tried separately: two of them were sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and one of them to five years', those sentences being reduced upon appeal to two sentences of five years' imprisonment, and the 2nd Defendant, who was 19½ years of age at the time of the offence, was ordered to be detained in a training centre.

2. The robbery occurred in a fur shop. The three other Defendants went up to the shop and overpowered the watchman, who was then tied up. The present Applicant had been told to stay downstairs at the entrance to the premises for a specified time and then to go upstairs. He obeyed those instructions, and when he got up there he found the watchman tied up and he was ordered to stand guard. He had gone there expecting only to be involved in the removal of the loot. He did in fact assist by taking one box of furs down towards a waiting lorry. At that point the alarm was raised and he ran away. He managed to escape and was not arrested until early this year.

3. At the time of the offence this Applicant was one month short of his seventeenth birthday. Clearly he played a lesser role than any of the others, including the 2nd Defendant, who was sentenced eventually to detention in a training centre. He says that he was not aware that any weapons were being carried, although in fact the others were carrying knives. It is clear that if the present sentence were to stand the Applicant would feel a sense of grievance, but quite apart from that we think that in all the circumstances and having regard to the reports which we have before us this young man would best be treated by detention in a training centre. It is fair to mention that at the time the present sentence was passed the trial  judge was aware that two of the sentences of imprisonment had been reduced to shorter terms but was not aware that the third man had had his sentence reduced to a training centre order.

4. For these reasons we grant the application and, treating this as the hearing of the appeal, we allow the appeal and substitute for the sentence of five years' imprisonment an order for detention in a training centre.

13th August 1986.