THE QUEEN v. LO YUEN

______________

______________

J U D G M E N T

______________

Macdougall, J.:

1. The applicant, who arrived illegally from China some 20 days before committing the robbery for which he was indicted, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by de Basto, J. to serve a term of 7 years' imprisonment.

2. The agreed facts were that the applicant and two accomplices entered the premises of a 53 year-old woman at about 10.30 one evening when she was asleep in her bedroom. One of the intruders was armed with a large knife, another with a pair of pliers, and the applicant had with him a length of water pipe. After blindfolding and binding the woman, they ransacked her room and forced her to accompany them as they made an unsuccessful attempt to gain access to an adjoining room occupied by her sister. Shortly afterwards, while searching in another room, the three men were alarmed by the sound of a police siren and hurriedly left the premises taking with them property valued at $65,000, none of which has been recovered.

3. Three weeks later the applicant was arrested with another illegal immigrant in a hut in Tuen Mun and was later identified by the victim at an identification parade as being one of the men who had robbed her. Furthermore, palm and thumb prints lifted by the police at the premises were found to match those of the applicant. It was therefore not surprising that he pleaded guilty to the robbery.

4. The judge was told in mitigation that the applicant had come to Hong Kong to earn money so that he could look after his father in China who was suffering from a lung disease, and that although the applicant was aware that the crime of robbery was punished in China by death, he was tricked into committing this robbery by two fellow illegal immigrants.

5. The judge, quite rightly, was not impressed, with this excuse. He considered that the circumstances of the offence were such that a sentence of 9 years' imprisonment would have been appropriate on conviction after a trial. He took into account the fact that the applicant had pleaded guilty and reduced by 2 years the sentence that he would otherwise have imposed.

6. We are satisfied that the sentence is a proper one. There is no merit in this application. Leave to appeal is therefore refused.