HKSAR v. WONG SUI KWONG AND ANOTHER

DCCC 913/2012

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 913 OF 2012

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Wong Sui-kwong and Tanakon Pisoot. The offences before the court principally arise out of at least nine burglaries of domestic premises in which either one or both of you or the 1st defendant, Leung Kin-wai, was involved. You, Wong Sui-kwong, the 2nd defendant, pleaded guilty to five charges of burglary (Charges 3, 6, 7, 8 and 10) and two charges of handling stolen goods (Charges 11 and 13) as well as one charge of possession of dangerous drugs (Charge 14). You, Tanakon Pisoot, have pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary (Charges 8 and 9) and one charge of breach of the conditions of your stay (Charge 16).

2.  The burglaries all took place within a period of just over two months between March and May last year.  In each case, the burgled premises were on the upper floors of buildings, and entry to the premises took place while the occupants were out.  During the burglaries, the personal items referred to in the charges, which sometimes were of significant value, were stolen.  Sometimes, entry into the flats was forced.  Sometimes, the occupiers returned simply to find the doors to their flats open.  It appears that the services of a locksmith had been obtained to gain entry to the flat on the basis of a pretence that the persons involved were the occupiers of the premises.

3.  The connection of you, Wong Sui-kwong, the 2nd defendant, and the 1st defendant with these burglaries first came to light when the female occupier of a flat referred to in the 10th charge came home in the afternoon of 23 May last year and found the door to her flat open. Leung Kin-wai, the 1st defendant, was in the lift lobby.  She found you, Wong Sui‑kwong, inside her flat.  You waved a wooden pole at her and then you and the 1st defendant escaped.  

4.  Fortunately, you could be identified from the images captured by a CCTV camera in the building.  As a result, two days later, on 25 May, the police conducted a raid at the Madera Hotel in Yau Ma Tei where the 1st defendant and you, Wong Sui‑kwong, were staying.  It was there that the police found not only you, Wong Sui-kwong, and the 1st defendant but a very large quantity of stolen goods, by means of which the police were able to link you to the burglaries now before the court.  The police also found house-breaking implements in the room. 

5.  The large quantity of items that have not been linked to particular burglaries or burglaries that are the subject of charges against you, Wong Sui-kwong, are the subject of the two charges of handling faced by you.  At the time of your arrest, Wong Sui-kwong, you were found to have methamphetamine hydrochloride, 2.56 of a crystalline solid containing 2.47 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride - that is the subject of Charge 14 - in your possession. 

6.  On 17 July, you, Tanakon Pisoot, were arrested in Hunghom.  It was found you had entered Hong Kong on 1 March 2012 and had been permitted to stay until 31 March 2012 but had overstayed for three and a half months.  That overstaying is the subject of Charge 16.  The police found a watch on you which you admitted was stolen in the two burglaries you had committed with the 2nd defendant in Fa Yuen Street.

7.  Burglary of other people’s houses is a serious offence.  It is not simply an offence involving the property of other individuals but it is also a violation of their privacy and their homes.  Even if a burglary is not discovered in one’s home as happened to the victim of Charge 10, it can still be deeply upsetting to the victim to know that strangers have been in their homes and stolen their belongings.  The loss to the victims is often not simply a financial loss.  Items stolen often have a deep sentimental value upon which a price cannot be put.  The stealing of items like passports, two-way permits, identity cards and bankcards puts the victims to great trouble and inconvenience. 

8.  As I am sure you have been informed by your legal advisers, the usual starting point for burglaries of domestic premises by a first offender is 3 years’ imprisonment.   

9.  As far as you, Wong Sui-kwong, are concerned, you were aged 32 at the time of these offences and were not a first offender.  Quite the contrary, you have an appalling criminal record and since 2004, you have spent much of your time in prison for one offence or another.  You have been convicted of seven previous offences of burglary.  On 18 September 2007, you were sentenced to a total of 40 months’ imprisonment in the District Court for six offences of burglary.  Three years later, on 23 July 2010, you were before the District Court once again for another offence of burglary and sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment.  19 months later, you were involved in the first of the five burglaries to which you have pleaded guilty before this court. 

10.  It is obvious that you were not deterred by earlier sentences passed by the courts.  Your record of previous burglaries is a serious aggravating feature in this case.  Of the three defendants in this case, you are the oldest and have by far the worst record.

11.  Bearing in mind your past history, I am satisfied that the appropriate starting point for each of the offences of burglary and each of the offences of handling is a sentence of 3 and a half years’ imprisonment on each charge.  I am satisfied that the appropriate overall starting point for the five offences of burglary and two offences of handling is 6 years’ imprisonment.  The appropriate starting point for the charge of possession of dangerous drugs in Charge 14 is 12 months’ imprisonment.

12.  Despite your previous convictions for trafficking in dangerous drugs, the prosecution have sensibly conceded that the relatively small quantity of methamphetamine hydrochloride makes it unlikely that there is any latent risk that you would have trafficked in these drugs.

13.  When you were arrested for the offence of possession of drugs on 25 May last year, you still had not been sentenced for the offence of possession of dangerous drugs, for which you were sentenced to a drug addiction treatment centre on 22 June last year.  I accept the submission made by Mr Acton-Bond that if the charge of possession of dangerous drugs now before the court had come before the court on 22 June last year, it might well have been the case that you would have been sentenced on that occasion to detention in a drug addiction treatment centre.  

14.  Mr Acton-Bond has said everything that could possibly be said on your behalf in mitigation.  I bear in mind what he has told me in mitigation and the letter that you have put before the court.  I hope that the sentiments that you express in that letter are genuine and that the fact that you now have two young children will finally bring home to you that drugs and crime threaten not only your future but their future as well.  The only real mitigation in your case are your pleas of guilty, for which you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.

15.  I pass sentence as follows.  On Charge 3, 28 months’ imprisonment; on Charge 6, 28 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentence on Charge 3; on Charge 7, 28 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 3 and 6; on Charge 8, 28 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 3, 6 and 7; on Charge 10, 28 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 3, 6, 7 and 8. 

16.  Turning to the handling charges, Charge 11, 28 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 3, 6, 7, 8 and 10.  On Charge 13, 28 months’ imprisonment which is to run concurrently with the sentence on Charge 11. So 4 months of that sentence are to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 3, 6, 7, 8 and 10.  On Charge 14, I sentence you to 8 months’ imprisonment which is to run concurrently with all the other sentences on the other charges. 

17.  The total sentence therefore is 4 years’ imprisonment.

18.  Insofar as you, Tanakon Pisoot, are concerned, it is clear from the facts you have admitted that your role was not simply that of a lookout in the two burglaries that are the subject of the two burglary charges 8 and 9 to which you have pleaded guilty.  In both burglaries, you were the person who kicked open the doors of the flats so that your accomplice could enter and steal.  You told the police that it was only when you were at the home of a friend of the 2nd defendant in the same building as the two burgled premises that the 2nd defendant suggested that you go upstairs and commit the first of the two burglaries.

19.  Mr Beukema has told me that at that time you had been drinking heavily.  While he does not put forward intoxication as an excuse for your conduct, he does suggest that it indicates that at least as far as you were concerned, the offences were not carefully planned but committed on the spur of the moment.  I am prepared to recognise that feature and the fact that your reward for committing these burglaries was limited by adopting a lower starting point of 2 and a half years’ imprisonment on each of the two charges of burglary.  You frankly admitted your offences when you were arrested by the police and that indicated where the offences had occurred and that you had committed them with the 2nd defendant.

20.  In view of your frank admissions and your plea of guilty before this court, you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.  I have considered Mr Beukema’s submission that the sentences on the two burglary charges should run concurrently as they were committed in the same building on the same day.  I have, however, rejected that submission.  It is clear that you had returned to the 2nd defendant’s friend’s flat after the first burglary before deciding to go out again and committing another burglary.

21.  I am prepared, however, to reflect the proximity in time between the two burglaries in the overall sentence I pass.  On Charge 8, I sentence you to 20 months’ imprisonment.  On Charge 9, I sentence you to 20 months’ imprisonment, 4 months of which are to run consecutively to the sentence on Charge 8.

22.  As far as the charge of breach of condition of stay is concerned, this is the second time you have been convicted for this offence.  In my view, the appropriate sentence is 2 months’ imprisonment which I order to run consecutively to the sentences on Charges 8 and 9.

23.  The total sentences that I pass on you today therefore are 26 months’ imprisonment.