HKSAR v. MA LEE YIN

HCMA 1222/2002

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 1222 OF 2002

(ON APPEAL FROM WSCC 1559/2002)

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J U D G M E N T

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1. This is an appeal against sentence. The appellant was convicted of careless driving and driving with excess alcohol. For the latter offence, she was ordered to do 80 hours of community service and she was disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence for a period of nine months. Her appeal is directed solely to the length of that disqualification.

2. She was a private chauffeur at the time and, as a result of the disqualification, she has lost her job. She had been a private chauffeur for a year. Before that she was a designer's assistant. She is a single lady, aged 31, who lives alone, although she has family in Hong Kong. She was born here.

3. At the moment she remains unemployed and is living off her savings. She says those savings should last three or four months, but the disqualification does not end until 1 August of this year, so she says, could I please and she asks very nicely make the disqualification shorter to avoid June and July being lean months.

4. She makes the point there was no accident. On the other hand, she was driving outside Central Police Station in Hollywood Road, parallel to a marked police car, when a taxi in front of her was not moving off. She lay on the horn and then pulled out to her right, almost colliding with the marked police car. She had come from a friend's birthday party with four times the limit of alcohol in blood.

5. As the Magistrate acknowledged in his statement of findings, the length of disqualification was well below what the guidelines recommend. The guidelines would have given a disqualification of some 22 months.

6. Accordingly, in those circumstances, I regret to say, taking everything into account, that I cannot find that the disqualification is too long and I cannot interfere. The fact is this appellant was dealt with leniently.