Appeal trims year off thief's sentence
A convicted thief had his jail term reduced by a year yesterday after the Court of Appeal found the trial judge should not have sentenced him using criteria for a different offence.
Luk Hau-cheung, 35, was acquitted of three charges of blackmail but convicted on one count of theft by the District Court on July 27 last year, for which he was jailed for two years and nine months.
Mr Justice Brian Keith said Judge Derrick Pang Wai-cheong had sentenced Luk on the basis of the blackmail charges rather than the theft charge.
He reduced Luk's prison sentence to one year, which will allow him to be released immediately.
Mr Justice Keith said Judge Pang was entitled to take circumstances surrounding the case into consideration when sentencing Luk, but found he erred when he referred to blackmail precedents. 'Where the judge fell into error was treating the accused's charge of theft as if it was as serious as blackmail,' he said.
Mr Justice Keith said Judge Pang was wrong to find Luk's theft charge 'deserves no less stricture from the courts than in a prior case of blackmail'.
Luk's first two charges of blackmail related to his alleged demands on two garage owners to pay him to use public parking areas. Luk allegedly told them he owned the property but did not use any threat or menace to extract the money.
The third blackmail charge related to a similar episode involving a unit owner who gave Luk a $2,000 cheque for parking privileges. The theft charge was related to Luk cashing in the cheque.
He pleaded not guilty to all four charges but was found guilty of theft. Yesterday, Luk withdrew his appeal against his conviction but pursued the appeal against his sentence.
