THE QUEEN v. YEUNG KAI-YIN (D1) AND ANOTHER

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

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SENTENCE

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Barker, J.A.:

1. In this case the first defendant, YEUNG Kai-yin, appeals against a sentence of 4 years for forgery of banknotes with intent to defraud and two cases of possession of forged banknotes. Dl pleaded guilty at the trial and was co-operative with the police, co-operative to the extent that he gave them certain information about the flat at Hennessy Road where the printing was done and other information and co-operative in the sense that he gave evidence for the prosecution at the trial of his co-accused, Clearly D1 was although not the leader of this syndicate an important member. He, it was who arranged for the renting of the flats; he, it was who bought machinery; he, it was who was going to get not only a salary but 20% of the takings and had he not pleaded guilty and had he not co-operated in the sense of giving evidence, we would have expected a very much higher sentence to have been passed upon him. We will say no more at this stage than that, for the reason that we have ordered retrials do the case of the second and the fourth defendants on various charges of which they were found guilty in respect of which we have quashed their convictions and sentences.

2. It has been said time and time again that it is in the public's interest to encourage people who commit offences to co-operate with the police and to give evidence if possible. We have considered the submission which has been made to us by Mr. Chan and the various cases to which he has drawn our attention which it is not necessary for us to set out in the judgment. Taking all these matters into consideration and particularly taking into consideration the fact that the tariff at the time when the sentences were passed in this case namely May 1984 was much lower than it is today, some may think ridiculously low, for these offences appear to be on the increase, we think that the sentence in respect of the first applicant was too high. We shall accordingly allow his application for leave to appeal against sentence, set aside the sentences of 4 years on each count concurrent and substitute therefor a sentence on count one, that is of forgery of banknotes with intent to defraud, of three years and on counts four and five, that is possession of forged banknotes, sentences of two years on each count, all those sentences to run concurrently.

3. We turn then to the second defendant, CHOW Yu-ching, and we make it clear in passing in the remarks that follow, that we are ignoring totally the fact that he has in the past been convicted on other counts and sentenced to a total of seven years because on those counts we have ordered retrial. So we are considering for the purpose of this application solely possession of 21 forged US$100 banknotes. Because of the tariff which applied in May of 1984 and because the second defendant pleaded guilty albeit in the middle of the trial to that count, we are of the view that the sentence of three years' imprisonment solely for the possession of 21 US$100 banknotes is too high. Accordingly, we allow his application for leave to appeal against sentence, we treat the hearing as the hearing of the appeal, we allow the appeal, we set aside the sentence and substitute therefor a sentence of two years' imprisonment.