R. v. TSE WAI MAN

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

Criminal Appeal No. 194/96

____________

_______________

J U D G M E N T

_______________

Liu, J.A.

1. The Applicant faced one charge of a robbery. He was charged that on 8 August 1995 together with two other accomplices, he robbed a female victim. The victim was relieved of articles, credit cards and other valuables. He came before the District Court. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three year and four months' imprisonment. He applies for leave to appeal against his sentence.

2. Counsel for the Applicant submits that there is room for considering sending for a training centre report with the view to having him accordingly dealt with. But on the circumstances known to the judge, which I am about to repeat, there would appear to be nothing to warrant this Court considering the possibility of sending the Applicant to a training centre.

3. On the day in question, with two accomplices, in day light, he robbed the female victim in a lift. One of the other men held the neck of the victim and punched her on her face and another man snatched her bag containing properties specified in the charge. The man who had held the neck of the victim pushed her onto the floor; thereupon he kicked her twice. The victim raised a hue and cry and the Applicant was apprehended by a civilian. Another man involved in the robbery was also caught virtually immediately with the third man in the gang, as it were, arrested the next day.

4. It was a robbery by more than one culprit. The Applicant was a party to a robbing gang of three. The violence they used on the victim was vicious and unnecessary. The misery caused to the victim must have been unbearable. She was kicked lying down, not just once but twice. It was by no means, as what was described by Li, a former Vice-President of this Court in AG v. Wong Sai-cheng, Application for Review No. 1 of 1985, 19 April 1985, "a normal case of a lift robbery".

5. The Applicant was 19 at the time of his offence. He was a drug addict but nevertheless a first offender for the robbery offence. He claimed to be a mere look-out and in any event his involvement was evidently less than that of the other two. No weapon was used. For a lift robbery with such a display of viciousness and violence, it was open to the Judge to take a serious view. He observed that but for the youth of the Applicant he would have selected a higher starting point than 5 years.

6. In the circumstances we cannot agree that the starting point of 5 years adopted by the trial judge in the circumstances of this case was in any way inappropriate. The judge duly gave the Applicant one third discount for his plea of guilty, thus sending him to prison for 3 years and 4 months. The sentence imposed by the judge is not manifestly excessive nor can it be said to be wrong in principle. For these reasons, the application of the Applicant for leave to appeal against sentence cannot be acceded to. We refuse it.