HKSAR v. ELEONOR T HIPOLITO

 DCCC721/2009

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 721 OF 2009

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  The Defendant pleads guilty to one count of theft.

2.  In this case, City Foreign Exchange Limited (“City”) operated a chain of businesses as remittance agents and bureau de change in Hong Kong.  City has employed the Defendant since 2004 as the customer service officer of one of the branches located in Wanchai (“the Shop”).  The staff members of City were allowed to keep Hong Kong dollars and other foreign currencies in the safe of the respective shops.

3.  The customer service officers of the shops would be provided with the password of the safe of their own shop only.  The staff were allowed to keep the cash in the safe for the daily operation of their businesses.  However, the closing balance of the total daily transactions entered into the central computer system by the staff must tally with the cash in the safe at the end of each shift.

4.  Staff members were not told the precise amount of cash which had to be kept each day, but were instructed to be judicious in keeping the currencies at a minimum and not to accumulate excessive amount of cash in the safe.  Any surplus cash as assessed by the individual staff members would be handed over to the Chung King Mansion branch of City for its safekeeping.

5.  In early April 2009, the head office of City conducted an audit and monitored the daily exchange rates (both purchase and sales) provided by each branch to customers.  It was discovered that the Shop has an abnormally high exchange rate and that the Shop had about 1.2 million cash in reserve based on the transaction records entered by the Defendant.

6.  The owner of City and the chief computer programmer conducted a surprise visit of the Shop on 16 April 2009.  They started checking the cash held at the safe against the transaction records entered by the Defendant.

7.  The Defendant suddenly admitted that he had made a terrible mistake.  Upon questioning by the owner and the chief computer programmer, the Defendant admitted that she had stolen about cash of 1.1 million from the Shop for the past seven months.  The cash stolen from the Shop was remitted to the Philippines for her father’s medical fees and his subsequent funeral expenses.  She felt very sorry and asked for a chance.  The case was then reported to the police and the Defendant was arrested.

8.  Under caution, the Defendant admitted the offences and expressed her remorse.  The Defendant made similar admissions in the two records of interview taken subsequently.  She further admitted that she had entered dummy entries in the computer system to facilitate the accumulation of cash, which was then taken by her.

9.  An audit was conducted by the company and a shortfall of HK$1,224,586.91 was found missing from the Shop.

10.  The Defendant is aged 33.  She has a clear record in Hong Kong.  The Defendant came to Hong Kong in 1992.  Her father was a musician working in Hong Kong who came to Hong Kong in 1986.  The Defendant was married to a Filipino male in 1996 in Hong Kong but was divorced in 2004.  Prior to working for City, she worked as a cashier for two financial institutes and a bar tender and cashier in a café.

11.  According to the mitigation submitted by the Defendant’s solicitor, the Defendant stole the money to pay for the medical expenses and the funeral expenses of her late father.  She was the sole breadwinner of the family, and she remitted all the money to the family in the Philippines.

12.  Despite the Defendant’s personal circumstances, theft is a very serious offence.  A substantial amount of money was involved in the present case, and the defendant abused the trust placed on her by her employer.

13.  According to the sentencing guidelines as laid down in the case of HKSAR v Cheung Mee Kiu [2006] 4 HKLRD 776 as revised in HKSAR v Ng Kwok Wing [2008] 4 HKLRD at 1017, breach of trust cases involving theft between $1 million to $3 million would attract a sentence in the region from three to five years.

14.  As the amount involved in the present case is about $1.22 million, I adopt a starting point of three years’ imprisonment.  Giving the Defendant one-third discount for her plea of guilty, the sentence is reduced to two years’ imprisonment, and this is the sentence I impose in the present case.