HKSAR v. CHING TAK HON

DCCC657/2009

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 657 OF 2009

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to an offence of burglary, contrary to Section 11(1)(b) and (4) of the Theft Ordinance.

2.  You have admitted that between 11 June and 12 June 2004, you, together with other persons unknown, burgled premises at the International Industrial Centre in Kwei Tei Street, Fo Tan, Shatin, and stole therein 3,073 mobile phones.

3.  On 12 June at about 5.50 am, two security guards working at the building heard some sounds of prising coming from the rear staircase of the building.

4.  One of the guards saw two males running out of the building from the metal gate of the rear staircase. Another guard went to check the staircase and found that the gate had been prised open. A report was made to the police.

5.  A telecom company was situated on the 3rd floor of that building. On 12 June at about 8.50 am, one of the supervisor’s noticed that the cover of an anti-burglary detector was dismantled and missing. They went to a room of their premises and found that the room had been ransacked and the mobile phones had gone missing. They found two labour gloves and a cutter which did not belong to the company in the room. They made a report to the police.

6.  Subsequently, repair was carried out on the damaged anti-burglary detectors. A blood stain was seen and found on the cover of one of the damaged detectors. That cover and the blood stain were sent for forensic examination.

7.  Upon further investigation, you were suspected of being involved in the burglary and you were arrested when you returned to Hong Kong from the mainland on 3 October 2008. On the same day the police took buccal swabs from you and they were also sent to the Government Laboratory for DNA examination.

8.  You were granted bail on the same day and were due to report back to the police on 11 November 2008. You, however, failed to report to the police and were put on the wanted list.

9.  In December 2008, the Government Chemist confirmed that the buccal swabs taken from the defendant matched with the DNA found on the blood stain of the subject detector cover.

10.  You were subsequently arrested in Shenzhen in May 2009 and escorted back to Hong Kong on 20 May 2009. You admitted under a cautioned interview that you committed the subject burglary. Your friends had asked you to burgle the premises and to steal the mobile phones therefrom. You were unemployed at the time of the offence so you committed the burglary. You were given cash of $3,000 as a reward for the commission of the burglary. You admitted that you entered the premises with others that night but you would not reveal their details.

11.  The 3,073 mobile phones stolen totalled $801,203.90, all of which were not insured and could not be recovered.

12.  You are aged 43, have seven previous convictions, two of which are related to burglary. Miss Wong, your counsel, has made very full and thorough mitigation on your behalf and I have taken everything she has had to say for you.

13.  In summary, she accepts that at about the time you committed the offence, just prior to that, you had been in trouble with the law on quite a few occasions. You had been sentenced to prison before and had of course similar convictions to the burglary.

14.  However, since your release from prison in 2003, your life has changed. You have become a filial father, a caring husband, a hardworking man and a law-abiding citizen. You have of course not been in trouble since your last release from prison in 2003, save of course for your commission for this offence in 2004.

15.  You were not arrested for this offence until some 4 years later, that is 2008, and it appears that the advancement in technology helped the prosecution and the police to find out that you were one of the burglars involved.

16.  Since 2003 you have been working as a cross-border driver and earned $15,000 a month; were recently remarried in 2005 and have a young son; and as stated in the letters provided by yourself, your former wife, your wife, you have a harmonious family and are a caring person.

17.   As rightly reflected by Miss Wong, this is not your first offence of burglary and, in view of you being a repeat offender, an enhancement of sentence is appropriate.

18.  For this offence, clearly you had jumped bail in November 2008. I am told by Miss Wong that you did that because you realised that you would face a stiff penalty and you wanted to earn money for your family for the duration of time that you were out.

19.  You accept now and you realise that was a very foolish act. You are not here charged with any offence for jumping bail and I am not going to use this as any aggravating factor. It was fortunate the police in China co-operated with those in Hong Kong and you were brought back.

20.  Taking into account all the mitigation put forward on your behalf, this was a commercial burglary of which the guidelines for commercial burglary is one of 2½ years’ imprisonment, or 30 months. However, I enhance that sentence by 3 months.

21.  Taking a starting point of 33 months’ imprisonment, giving you full credit for your plea of guilty and that you have shown genuine remorse, I reduce that term by one-third to 22 months’ imprisonment, which makes a total of 1 year and 10 months’ imprisonment, to which you are so sentenced.