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DCCC1178/2010
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 1178 OF 2010
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Date: |
8 March 2011 at 10.08 am |
Present: |
Miss Noelle A Chit, PP, of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR
Ms Liza S H Yip, instructed by Messrs Tang, Lai & Leung, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant |
Offence: |
Burglary (入屋犯法罪) |
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. The defendant has pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary.
2. The offence was committed on 13 September 2010 at domestic premises in Sham Shui Po. The defendant stole a wallet containing a Hong Kong Identity Card, a jade stone, an Octopus card, a Canadian dollar coin and HK3,300 currency.
3. The facts admitted by the defendant disclose that the victim in this case, a Mr Cheung who is aged 70, was the tenant of a middle room of a multi-cubicle apartment situated on the 4th floor of 255 Tai Nan Street in Sham Shui Po.
4. The defendant was the tenant of the front room of the premises, and shortly after midnight the victim went to the toilet, leaving the door of his room open. When the victim returned from the bathroom, he saw the back of the defendant as she was leaving the premises.
5. When the victim got back to his room, he found that his wallet, which had been placed inside the pocket of his trousers hanging on the wall of the middle room, was missing. The wallet contained the property the subject of the charge.
6. Officers subsequently arrived for investigation and it was whilst they were carrying out that investigation that the defendant returned and she was identified by the victim as the person who had just left the premises.
7. The male officer who was dealing with the case summonsed the assistance of a female officer who arrived shortly afterwards. They requested to search the defendant and she asked to go to the bathroom. She was accompanied there by the female police officer, and in the bathroom, she suddenly dropped the wallet into a toilet bowl.
8. The wallet was recovered and inside the wallet were recovered the identity card of the victim, the jade stone and the Canadian coin. The money was missing.
9. The victim was later shown the wallet and its contents, and identified them as his property.
10. The defendant remained silent when cautioned and quiet when the officers asked her questions about the incident.
11. The defendant has appeared in court on 20 previous occasions. 16 of her offences are for theft-related matters. I note, however, that there are no offences involving burglary. Most of the offences are charges of theft for which short prison terms had been imposed.
12. I am told in mitigation that the defendant lives alone at the premises in question. She has had an unfortunate upbringing and was abandoned when she was young. She has a son who is now aged 20, but she has no contact with him.
13. I am told that on the day in question, she had an argument with her boyfriend and she consumed alcohol, and it was on the spur of the moment that she committed the offence.
14. As the defendant has no doubt been told by her counsel and she no doubt knows from her previous criminal experience, the starting point for offences of domestic burglaries is a sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment, the only mitigation in this case being the fact that she has pleaded guilty, which would entitle the defendant to a discount of one-third.
15. However, I note that the burglary occurred in a multi-cubicle apartment and she and the victim were occupants of rooms that were close to each other, and the victim on the night in question had left his door open. This was very much in the nature of an opportunistic theft.
16. I, therefore, propose to adopt a lower starting point that an offence of this kind would normally attract.
17. I propose to take a starting point of 18 months for this offence and reduce that by one-third to reflect the guilty plea.
18. The sentence I impose, therefore, is one of 12 months’ imprisonment.
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