HKSAR v. CHAN KIT YING, NILSON

DCCC 1211/2024 & 120/2025 (Heard Together)

[2025] HKDC 1665

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 1211 OF 2024

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IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 120 OF 2025

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REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Introduction

1.  The defendant has two cases before this court, namely, DCCC 1211/2024 and DCCC 120/2025.  In DCCC 1211/2024, the defendant is charged with thirty-six charges including Making off without payment and other traffic related offences that he committed on six different occasions.  In DCCC 120/2025, the defendant is facing seven charges including Dangerous driving and other related offences.

2.  The defendant pleaded guilty to all the charges and admitted the respective summary of facts.  The defendant was accordingly convicted of all charges.

DCCC 1211/2024

3.  The first case concerns the defendant committed the same set of offences on six different occasions.  The charges are listed as follows:

(a) Making off without payment[1] (Charges 1, 7, 13, 19, 25 and 31);

(b) Forgery of a document[2] (Charges 2, 8, 14, 20, 26 and 32);

(c) Driving without a valid driving licence[3] (Charges 3, 9, 15, 21, 27 and 33);

(d) Driving while disqualified[4] (Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34);

(e) Driving an unlicensed vehicle[5] (Charges 5, 11, 17, 23, 29 and 35); and

(f) Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance[6] (Charges 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36)

4.  At the material times, the Defendant only possessed a learner’s driving licence which had already expired on 7 September 2015.  Further, he was disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence of all classes of vehicles until 17 July 2030.  However, on the following six occasions, the defendant was found driving a private car bearing different (and fake) registration number plates with chassis number ACR50-7060286 (“the said Vehicle”) to various petrol stations for refueling and without making payment.

5.  Concerning Charges 1 to 6, on 27 January 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to Esso-Tai Wo Road Petrol Filling Station, located at No 9 Tai Po Tai Wo Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 53.83 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$1,280.10, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

6.  Concerning Charges 7 to 12, on 30 January 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to Sinopec-Ting Tai Road Petrol Filling Station, located at No 10 Ting Tai Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 53.88 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$828.70, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

7.  Concerning Charges 13 to 18, on 31 January 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to Caltex-Cafeteria Beach Petrol Filling Station, located at Castle Peak Road, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 45.54 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$828.50, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

8.  Concerning Charges 19 to 24, on 4 February 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to PetrolChina-Tsuen Wan Petrol Filling Station, located at No. 171 Yeung Uk Road, Tsuen Wan, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 46.15 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$811.30, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

9.  Concerning Charges 25 to 30, on 5 February 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to Shell-Au Tau Petrol Filling Station, located at Lot 1045 BRP, Castle Peak Road, Au Tau, Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 44.64 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$1,160.20, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

10.  Concerning Charges 31 to 36, on 7 February 2024 the defendant drove the said Vehicle to PetrolChina-Yuen Long Petrol Filling Station, located at No 188 Kam Tin Road, Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong.  After refueling 52.55 litres of petrol with a total value of HK$861.30, the defendant drove away without making any payment.

11.  On each of the abovementioned occasion, the defendant drove the said Vehicle without a valid driving licence and while he was being disqualified.  As the vehicle licence of the said Vehicle was expired on 23 March 2023, the defendant was driving an unlicensed vehicle at all material time.  Further, as he used different fake licence plates on the said Vehicle, he committed the offences of Forgery of a document.

DCCC 120/2025

12.  The second case concerns the defendant’s extremely dangerous driving manner when he was trying to evade arrest by Police.  As a result of that, the defendant is being charged with the following offences:

(a) Dangerous driving[7] (Charge 1);

(b) Failing to stop on being so required by uniformed police officer or traffic warden[8] (Charge 2);

(c) Driving while disqualified[9] (Charge 3);

(d) Driving without a valid driving licence[10] (Charge 4);

(e) Driving an unlicensed vehicle[11] (Charge 5);

(f) Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance[12] (Charge 6); and

(g) Using marking on a vehicle with intent to deceive[13] (Charge 7)

13.  The facts of the second case can be summarized as follows.  At around 1 pm on 22 June 2024, Police officers were on driving patrol on a police vehicle at the junction of Ma Sik Road and Fan Leng Lau Road and spotted a vehicle bearing license plate JJ1681 driving in an unsteady manner and oscillating between two lanes.

14.  Police officers signaled the driver of the vehicle to stop at a bus stop nearby and the vehicle stopped at a bus stop.  When one of the officers approached the vehicle, the driver (later known to be the defendant) suddenly drove the vehicle away. Police officers gave chase with the Police vehicle.  During the chase, the defendant drove the vehicle with a series of dangerous acts including jumping red light, making U-turn when traffic signal prohibited and changing lanes at high speed.  As a result, the defendant’s vehicle bumped into a lorry and stopped.

15.  Police officers immediately ran towards the defendant’s vehicle and issued warnings to the defendant repeatedly.  As the defendant did not step out of the vehicle, one of the officers used his baton to break the window next to the left front passenger seat of the vehicle.  Suddenly, the defendant reversed the vehicle sharply and two officers only narrowly avoided being hit by the defendant’s vehicle.  After crashing into another lorry, the defendant’s vehicle continued to drive at a high speed at about 100 km/h along Fanling Highway, San Tin Highway, Tai Lam Tunnel, Tsing Long Highway, Pat Heung Road and Kam Tin Road towards the direction of Yuen Long.  During which the defendant drove at excessive speed, ignored traffic signals and traffic lights, and on multiple occasions caused other cars to brake or change direction to avoid collision.

16.  Later, the defendant’s vehicle went along Tsing Long Highway in the direction of Ting Kau Bridge.  It entered Tai Lam Tunnel then Cheung Tsing Tunnel and into Tsing Kwai Highway in the direction of Kowloon.  During which the defendant drove at a speed over 100 km/h and cut through cars and crossed double white lines multiple times.

17.  At around 1:50 pm, Police officers lost track of the defendant’s vehicle in the middle section of Tsing Ma Bridge.  It is estimated that the whole Police chase covered a distance of about 70 km.

18.  Later that day, Police managed to locate the defendant’s vehicle in Tuen Mun.  Upon investigation, it was discovered that the defendant’s vehicle was an unlicensed vehicle (Charge 5).  Concerning the defendant, it was found that he never obtained a full driving licence and his provisional driving licence expired on 7 September 2015 (Charge 4).  According to the defendant’s traffic conviction record, he has been disqualified from driving all kinds of vehicle until 17 July 2030 (Charge 3).  Furthermore, the defendant did not have third party insurance at the material time when he was driving the vehicle (Charge 6) and he used a fake number plate on the vehicle (Charge 7).

Mitigation

19.  The defendant is 33 years of age.  He is divorced and has a 10 years old daughter.  He received education up to secondary one.  Before his arrest, the defendant worked as a car mechanic and earned around HK$15,000 per month.  He lived with his girlfriend.  His parents are both in their 60s and he has an elder brother.

20.  Concerning criminal and traffic record, the defendant has quite a number of both traffic and criminal previous convictions.  In total, the defendant has eight previous records consisted of 41 charges.  The offences include Possession of dangerous drug, Theft, Dangerous driving, Driving while disqualified, Conspiracy to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, etc.  Concerning offences related to dishonesty, he was convicted of one count of Attempt to take conveyance without authority in 2010, one count of Theft in both 2016 and 2021, and 5 counts of Theft and Attempted theft in 2021.  Concerning traffic related offences, he was convicted of Dangerous driving in 2018 and 2021, Driving while disqualified once in 2018 and twice in 2021, and Using a motor vehicle on a road against third party risks in 2016, 2018 and twice in 2021.

21.  In mitigation, Defence submitted the defendant is very remorseful now.  As he pleaded guilty to all the charges, the court saved a lot of time and resources.  Defence submitted that after the defendant learnt that the Police was trying to locate him through his friends about the Dangerous driving case, he did make contact with the Police.  Defence accepted that what the defendant did might not qualify as surrendering to the Police.  Nevertheless, the defendant was co-operative with the Police during investigation.  These acts showed that the defendant is genuinely remorseful.  It was further submitted that the defendant committed the offences in DCCC 120/2025 out of panic as he was traumatized by his previous encounter with Police in which he was shot by a Police officer and was seriously injured.

22.  Lastly, as there are numerous charges in these two cases, Defence urged the court to consider the totality principle and impose concurrent sentence.  All in all Defence asked the court to impose a lenient sentence to the defendant.

Sentencing Consideration

23.  As there are two cases with multiple charges, the court will deal with each case separately and arrive at an appropriate sentence for each case.  Then the court will proceed to deal with the totality of sentence of both cases.

24.  In DCCC 1211/2024, though there are a total of thirty-six charges, as mentioned earlier, they can be conveniently grouped together and dealt with accordingly. The first group of charges is “Making off without payment” (Charges 1, 7, 13, 19, 25 and 31).  The maximum sentence for this offence is 3 years’ imprisonment and there is no tariff for this offence.  Considered the facts of the whole case, the defendant’s personal background, his poor criminal records and the amount of money involved, I adopt 9 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, for Charges 1, 7, 13, 19, 25 and 31 the defendant is sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment for each of the above charges.

25.  For the charges of “Forgery of a document” (Charges 2, 8, 14, 20, 26 and 32), the defendant used various fake registration plate on the said Vehicle when he committed the offences.  Obviously the defendant did this in an attempt to hide his identity and to evade legal responsibility.  The maximum penalty for this offence is 3 years’ imprisonment.  Considered all the circumstances of the case, I adopt 6 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, the sentence for each of Charges 2, 8, 14, 20, 26 and 32 is 4 months’ imprisonment.

26.  For the charges of “Driving without a valid driving licence” (Charges 3, 9, 15, 21, 27 and 33), these are not the defendant’s first conviction of this offence therefore the maximum penalty is a fine of $10,000 and 6 months’ imprisonment. Considered all circumstances, I adopt 3 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, the sentences for Charges 3, 9, 15, 21, 27 and 33 are 2 months’ imprisonment.

27.  For the charges of “Driving while disqualified” (Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34), the maximum penalty is a fine of $10,000 and 12 months’ imprisonment.  Considered all the circumstances, I adopt 6 months’ imprisonment as the starting point for Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, the sentences for Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34 are 4 months’ imprisonment.  As this is not the first time the defendant committed this offence, I also order the defendant to be disqualified for 3 years for each of the above charges.

28.  For the charges of “Driving an unlicensed vehicle” (Charges 5, 11, 17, 23, 29 and 35), the maximum penalty for a first conviction is a fine of $2,000 and 3 months’ imprisonment.  Considered all the circumstances, I adopt 3 weeks’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, for Charges 5, 11, 17, 23, 29 and 35 the defendant is sentenced to 2 weeks’ imprisonment.

29.  For the charges of “Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance” (Charges 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36), the maximum penalty is a fine of $10,000, imprisonment for 12 months and disqualification no less than 12 months and no more than 3 years.  Considered all the circumstances, I adopt 3 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty pleas, for Charges, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36, the defendant is sentenced to 2 months’ imprisonment for each charge and be disqualified for 2 years.

30.  Lastly, the court has to consider the totality of the sentence of DCCC 1211/2024. Considered all the circumstances of the six incidents, the personal background of the defendant, his previous records and the amounts of money involved, I am of the view that the global starting point for Charges 1 to 36 should be around 2 years.  Therefore, after the guilty pleas, the sentence should be 16 months’ imprisonment.  To achieve this, I order that the prison sentence of Charges 1 to 36 to serve concurrently except 2 months’ imprisonment of each of Charges 7, 13, 19, 23 and 31 to serve consecutively to Charge 1.  As a result, the total sentence is 16 months’ imprisonment.  Concerning disqualification, as the calculation is quite complicated, I will deal with it at a later stage after I deal with the sentence of DCCC 120/2025.

31.  I now turn to DCCC 120/2025.  There is no doubt that the driving manner of the defendant at the material time was appalling and extremely dangerous.  What the defendant did was total disrespect to the law and his acts showed that he did not care about the safety of other road users.  Even worse is that this was not the first time the defendant committed this type of offences.  According to his criminal records, the defendant committed series of offences of exactly the same nature not once but multiple times in 2016, 2018 and 2021.  This is the defendant’s third Dangerous driving conviction and the second conviction in the last 5 years.  It was sheer luck of the defendant and other road users that no one was injured in the incident.  In any event, this court is of the view that this is a very bad and serious case of Dangerous driving and deterrent sentence is definitely called for.

32.  There is a long list of aggravating features for Charge 1, namely:

(a) the defendant drove dangerously over a long distance and committed a series of traffic offences;

(b) the defendant drove without a valid driving licence;

(c) the defendant drove while disqualified by court;

(d) the defendant’s vehicle collided with at least two other vehicles and caused property damage;

(e) the defendant has a poor criminal record with numerous similar convictions; and

(f) the defendant committed the offences while he was on bail.

33.  The maximum penalty for Dangerous driving is 3 years’ imprisonment.  Considered all the circumstances, I adopt 24 months’ imprisonment as the starting point for Charge 1.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the sentence for Charge 1 is 16 months’ imprisonment.  Further, as this is the defendant’s second Dangerous driving conviction within the last 5 years, I make an order that the defendant be disqualified from driving for 3 years.  There is no special reason not to order the defendant to attend and complete a driving improvement course.  Therefore, I order the defendant to complete a driving improvement course within the last 3 months of all his qualification orders expire.

34.  The maximum penalty for Charge 2 is surprisingly low, i.e. a fine of $2,000.  As the defendant pleaded guilty to this charge, he is fined $1,000.

35.  For Charge 3, I adopt 6 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the defendant is sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment for Charge 3.  As this is not the first time the defendant committed this offence, I also order the defendant to be disqualified from driving for 3 years.

36.  For Charge 4, I adopt 3 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the defendant is sentenced to 2 months’ imprisonment for Charge 4.

37.  For Charge 5, I adopt 3 weeks’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the defendant is sentenced to 2 weeks’ imprisonment for Charge 5.

38.  For Charge 6, I adopt 3 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the defendant is sentenced to 2 months’ imprisonment for Charge 6 and be disqualified for 2 years.

39.  The maximum penalty for Charge 7 is 3 years’ imprisonment and a fine of $10,000. Considered all the circumstances, I adopt 6 months’ imprisonment as the starting point.  After giving one-third discount for the guilty plea, the defendant is sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment for Charge 7.

40.  Concerning totality of sentence, I order the terms of imprisonment of Charges 1, 3 to 7 to be served wholly concurrently.  Therefore, the total sentence of DCCC 120/2025 is 16 months’ imprisonment.  Concerning the disqualification orders I made in DCCC 120/2025, I shall deal with them later with DCCC 1211/2024.

41.  Now I shall deal with the totality of sentence (excluding disqualification) of DCCC 1211/2024 and DCCC 120/2025.  To recap, the total sentences of each of DCCC 1211/2024 and DCCC 120/2025 is 16 months’ imprisonment.  In considering the totality of sentence of the two cases, I have considered the facts of both cases, personal circumstances of the defendant, his previous criminal and traffic records, and the fact that he committed the offences of DCCC 120/2025 while he was on bail.  Considered all of the above, I order 12 months’ imprisonment of DCCC 120/2025 to be served consecutively to the sentence of DCCC 1211/2024.  As a result, the total sentence is 28 months’ imprisonment.

Disqualification Orders

42.  Next, I shall deal with the numerous disqualification orders I made in both cases.  To begin with, accordingly to the criminal records of the defendant, there is a series of disqualification orders imposed on him in his previous cases that in effect have disqualified him from driving until 17 July 2030.  It is important for the court to take note of this situation so that any disqualification imposed for the two cases will not be excessive.  Also, the court will adopt a practical approach in considering the totality of the disqualification orders so that any order made will not be overly complicated and difficult to calculate.  Instead of ordering the disqualification to run concurrently or consecutively, I will specify the effective date of each of the disqualification order.

43.  Further, as there are multiple disqualification orders imposed in each case, it will be appropriate to deal with the disqualification orders made in individual case and then proceed to deal with them together.

44.  I will start with DCCC 1211/2024.  In this case, I have imposed disqualification orders of 3 years for the charges of “Driving while disqualified” (Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34) and 2 years for the charges of “Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance” (Charges 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36).

45.  Pursuant to section 4(2)(a) of the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third Party Risks) Ordinance, the disqualification imposed under this section has to start to run on the date of conviction.  Therefore, for Charges 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36, the court has no discretion and the disqualification orders started to run on the date of conviction and so in effect they all run concurrently.

46.  For the charges of “Driving while disqualified” (Charges 4, 10, 16, 22, 28 and 34), I order the disqualification of 3 years to take effect immediately, ie with effect from the date of sentence.

47.  I now turn to DCCC 120/2025.  There are three disqualification orders imposed in this case, namely, 3 years for “Dangerous driving” (Charge 1), 3 years for “Driving while disqualified” (Charge 3) and 2 years for “Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance” (Charge 6).

48.  For “Using a motor vehicle without third party insurance”, as explained before, the law stipulates that the disqualification can only take effect on the date of conviction.  Therefore, the disqualification of Charge 6 already started to run on the date of conviction.

49.  However, the disqualification of “Dangerous driving” and “Driving while disqualified” is not that straightforward.  Section 69A of the Road Traffic Ordinance provides that if:

(a) the court convicts a person of a “relevant scheduled offence”;

(b) the conviction is the person’s second or subsequent conviction;

(c) the court sentences the person to a term of imprisonment; and

(d) the court orders the person be disqualified.

Then the court must direct that the disqualification period is not to start until the person finishes serving the term of imprisonment.

50.  According to the Schedule of the Road Traffic (Driving-offence Points) Ordinance[14], Dangerous driving is a relevant scheduled offence.  Further, the defendant last convicted of Dangerous driving on 19 March 2021 and therefore Charge 1 is his second conviction of a relevant scheduled offence within 5 years.  Further, this court has sentenced the defendant to a total of 28 months’ imprisonment. Under these circumstances, the conditions listed in section 69A(1) are all satisfied and accordingly the disqualification of Charge 1 can only start to run when he finishes serving the term of imprisonment unless there are special reasons for the court not to make such direction.

51.  To make the situation even more complicated is the fact that this is the defendant’s second conviction of “Driving while disqualified” within 5 years.   Section 44(3) of the Road Traffic Ordinance prescribes that any disqualification resulting from this charge “…shall be in addition to any other period of disqualification ordered under any other provision of this Ordinance.”  In other words, the 3 years disqualification imposed for Charge 3 can only start to run after the 3 years of disqualification imposed for Charge 1 expires.  As a result, the court has to order the disqualification imposed for Charge 3 to run after disqualification imposed for Charge 1 expires.

52.  Having considered all of the above, I order the 3 years disqualification of Charge 1 to start to run when the defendant finishes serving the term of imprisonment of these two cases.  Further, the 3 years disqualification of Charge 3 will start to run immediate after the disqualification of Charge 1 expires.  Therefore, the disqualification of Charge 3 is in effect to run wholly consecutively to the disqualification of Charge 1.

53.  To sum up, the total sentence for both cases is a fine of $1,000, 28 months’ imprisonment and disqualified for (i) 2 years with effect from the date of conviction, and (ii) 6 years with effect from the date that the defendant finishes serving the term of imprisonment.  And the defendant is required to complete a driving improvement course within the last 3 months of the disqualification period.

54.  After consulting the Defence, I order the defendant to pay the fine of $1,000 within 3 months from the date of sentence.  I have explained to the defendant the legal consequence of disqualification and the order to complete driving improvement course.  The defendant indicated that he understood.