HKSAR v. ILYAS MUHAMMAD

DCCC 265/2015

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 265 OF 2015

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  The defendant has pleaded guilty to one charge of burglary.

2.  The facts admitted by the defendant show that this burglary took place at a building in Pok Man Street in Tai Kok Tsui, which is described as a six-storey building with four units on each floor.  The rest of the facts are indicative of the fact that the units were residential units.

3.  There is no CCTV or security guard for the building and the entrance is not secured.  The building has wire trunking and the trunking collects electrical wires shared by two flats, and, so far as the charge is concerned, it is the electrical wires that were taken by the defendant.

4.  The defendant has admitted in the facts that he entered this building as a trespasser and stole some electric wires from the building.

5.  Although the offence occurred on 4 February, a person was seen to be tampering with the electrical wire trunking on 3 February.

6.  On 4 February, the defendant was seen in the premises.  He was holding two large bags with electric wires protruding from them.  The defendant was eventually intercepted or followed to the rooftop and was intercepted outside the building in Pok Man Street.

7.  After the police were called, they found bundles of electric wires and various tools from the bags that the defendant was carrying.  The tools included screwdrivers, scissors, glass cutter and -- the electric wires were confirmed to be from the building.

8.  One resident of the building confirms that she had found the electric wire trunking outside her flat had been tampered with and some of the wire was missing, and from her statement, it would appear that occurred on 4 February.

9.  The defendant made admissions when interviewed with an interpreter.  He admitted he had been in the building.  He had been asked to look after the bags by a Chinese male.

10.  The defendant’s antecedents have also been put before the court.  He is aged 30, born in Pakistan, had been discharged from custody on 8 November 2014.  I am told in mitigation that he is a torture claimant. 

11.  He has six previous convictions in Hong Kong dating from 2011 to 2015:  three previous occasions of dishonesty, one of remaining in Hong Kong without the authority of the Director of Immigration, and two convictions for possession of a dangerous drug. 

12.  The defendant has received sentences of imprisonment in the past.  The most lengthy of those was in 2012, when he received an eventual sentence in respect of 14 months’ imprisonment.

13.  As far as mitigation is concerned, the defendant prays in aid:

1)his own plea of guilty;

2)the fact that there are no aggravating factors;

3)the property was of comparatively low value;

4)the reference of one of the witnesses to a cost of $3,000 to reinstall wires to her flat;

5)all the property that was taken was recovered; the evidence of what occurred on 4 February shows that the defendant was acting alone;

6)no violence was involved; and

7)no apparent damage to any of the residential units outside from the damage caused by the removal of the electric wires.

14.  The premises are a domestic premises, because there were people residing within it, and the defendant took advantage of the absence of security to commit this burglary.  The burglary cannot be described as a walk-in type of burglary.  The building was obviously targeted because it was insecure.

15.  As I note, with the submission of defence counsel in this case, there is no particular aggravating factors and nothing in the mitigating factors to persuade me to depart from the normal tariff sentence for a domestic premises burglary.

16.  The normal tariff for a domestic premises burglary has a starting point at 3 years’ imprisonment.

17.  I do not propose to increase or decrease this starting point.

18.  The defendant is, of course, entitled to the benefit of his plea of guilty, that benefit being a one-third reduction in the normal sentence.

19.  This leads to a final sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment for the defendant and that is the sentence I will impose.