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DCCC203/2010
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 203 OF 2010
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Before:
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H H Judge S D’Almada Remedios
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Date:
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6 August 2010 at 10.12 am
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Present:
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Mr Michael Arthur, Counsel on fiat, for HKSAR
Mr James Tze Ying Kuen, instructed by Messrs Christine M Koo & Ip, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant
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Offence:
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(1) Attempted burglary(企圖入屋犯法罪)
(2) & (3) Resisting a police officer in the due execution of his duty (抗拒在正當執行職務的警務人員)
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted burglary, contrary to section 11(1)(a) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance, Cap.210, and section 159G of the Crimes Ordinance.
2. You have admitted that on 19 January 2010 you attempted to enter as a trespasser a domestic premises known as 5th Floor, No. 3, Kiu Yam Street, Shamshuipo, Kowloon, with intent to steal therein. At the material time, you were in Hong Kong on a two-way permit granted to you as you live in China. You arrived the day before you committed this offence.
3. On 19 January, at about 1.10 pm, police officers arrived at the 5th floor of No. 3, Kiu Yam Street. They were in plainclothes, and from a distance of about 6 metres away they saw you repeatedly looking side to side outside the premises in question, which I will refer to as the flat. You had a shoulder bag and they saw you were wearing a glove on your right hand and prising at the gap near the lock on the wooden of the flat with a screwdriver. They had hidden at a place which was only 2 metres away from you to observe you doing this.
4. Upon seeing you prising the wooden door, they shouted “Police” and displayed their warrant card. One officer snatched the screwdriver and glove from you and asked you what you were doing there and whether you lived at that flat. You did not reply.
5. You were arrested for attempted burglary and a caution was administered, but you remained silent.
6. You then attempted to escape by running down the staircase and the officers gave chase. Although they shouted, “Police, don’t run”, you continued to run away. You ran out of the building and eventually you were intercepted at about 1.15pm at the junction between Kowloon Road and Castle Peak Road.
7. Your bag was later retrieved but it did not contain anything suspicious.
8. The wooden door to the flat was found to have marks of being prised. The flat’s tenant confirmed that the door was new and did not show any sign of being prised before this incident. He also confirmed that he did not know you.
9. The landlady’s agent also confirmed that the wooden door did not show any sign of being prised when she visited the flat in early January 2010.
10. Defendant, you are aged 33 and of clear record. You are married with two children aged 4 years old and 7 months old. Your mother is 62 and is of ill-health, suffering from lung cancer, and is at the late stage of her life. You were working as a decoration worker, earning 1,700 renminbi in China, and are the sole provider for your wife, children and mother.
11. I have received letters from yourself, your brother, your wife, and a medical report of your mother.
12. I have taken into account all that your counsel, Mr James Kuen, has said in mitigation on your behalf today. He has interpreted briefly the contents of those letters written. They are letters in mitigation for the court to pass as lenient a sentence as possible upon you as you are remorseful for your misdeeds, and that as a result of your incarceration since the commission of this crime in January, your family has been suffering financial hardship and psychological distress, and have asked me to give you one final chance.
13. I am informed that you had originally come to Hong Kong for visiting friends and relatives and sight-seeing and buying medical products back to China. Yan had also hoped to get some work here as a decoration worker, and for that reason, I am informed, that you had a screwdriver and gloves in your possession. As you were in need of money, you suddenly had the urge to burgle this flat and thus you committed this offence.
14. If it was your intention to come to Hong Kong to sight-see and see relatives that was short-lived because you committed this offence less than 24 hours after you had arrived in Hong Kong.
15. I reject the mitigation that you had the screwdriver and glove for the purposes of doing any decoration work or hoping to get decoration work. It is clear to me that you had prepared yourself and gone equipped for the purposes of burglary. The flat was located on the 5th floor of a building. You had to enter from the ground floor and walk up. It is not a premises you came across suddenly as you are walking past and have taken the opportune moment to burgle.
16. Nevertheless, I accept that through your plea of guilty you have shown your remorse for your misdeeds. I am aware also that your mother is of ill-health and in the late stages, but that is something you may have thought about before the commission of this offence. In any event, that is of no great assistance in your mitigation.
17. As your counsel rightly says, there are guidelines for sentences in relation to the offences of burglary and attempted burglary laid down by the Court of Appeal. For this offence the guideline is a starting point of 3 years’ imprisonment had you been convicted after trial. That is of course for domestic premises.
18. As you have pleaded guilty, you are given full credit for your plea and I will deduct one-third from that term of 3 years, leaving a sentence of 2 years, to which you are so imprisoned.
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(S D'Almada Remedios)
District Judge |
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