HKSAR v. YIU CHI SHING

HCMA 350/2010

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 350 OF 2010

(ON APPEAL FROM KTCC 7059 OF 2009)

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J U D G M E N T

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1.  The Appellant, a man of previous good character in his early forties pleaded guilty before Joseph To, Esq. in the Magistrates’ Court to one charge of assaulting a police officer acting in the execution of his duty.

2.  The circumstances emerging from the Brief Facts which the Appellant admitted are these.  While he was being interviewed in the police station by one police constable, he started shouting.  When another police constable approached him to try to calm him down, he slapped that other police constable’s face causing tenderness.

3.  The Magistrate adopted a starting point of one month’s imprisonment.  Taking into account the Appellant guilty plea and his personal circumstances which included his ill-health, the Magistrate discounted the sentence to 14 days’ imprisonment.  The Appellant now appeals against his sentence of 14 days’ imprisonment, complaining that is too severe.

4.  I might, if I had been in the Magistrate’s place, have felt it possible to spare the Appellant from imprisonment.  But dealing with the matter on appeal, I do not feel able to say that the Magistrate strayed beyond the range within which he was entitled to pass that sentence in all the circumstances. 

5.  That being so, I dismiss the appeal.