A TEENAGER who tried to rob a bank safe containing about $1.3 million became a drug addict in a calculated move to evade prison.
Chan Wai-kei, 19, took up heroin after friends told him he would be sent to a drug treatment centre instead of jail if he were an addict.
But Deputy Judge Davies said in the District Court the burglar had 'only made matters worse' and jailed him for three years.
Chan pleaded guilty to burglary.
Before passing sentence, the judge expressed irritation at Chan for insisting he had acted alone.
Noting that 13 cigarette butts were found near a hole bored into the bank's wall, Deputy Judge Davies said: 'I can't somehow imagine this 19-year-old with all these tools sitting in front of this hole smoking all these cigarettes.' On February 5 last year, locksmith's apprentice Chan broke into the furniture shop next to the Tsuen Wan branch of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank.
