9 Oct 2025
Bail pending appeal was granted because the applicant advanced a reasonably arguable ground that the sentence on Count 2 should not have been wholly consecutive (thus affecting totality), and because the applicant would have served a substantial part of the sentence by the time of the appeal hearing; previous bail breaches were not determinative in light of substantial time already served.
2 Feb 2021
Leave to appeal against sentence was granted because there were arguable legal questions as to whether the indicated aggregate sentence (97.5 months) was manifestly excessive and whether the trial judge misapplied the observation in The Queen v Tong Hoi Fung when elevating individual baseline sentences, making the matter fit for appellate consideration.
28 Oct 2020
The judge erred in awarding only a 45% discount; the correct discount for the appellant's assistance was 50%. The judge was functus officio by the time of the 2 July 2019 re-sentencing and the slip rule could not be used to alter sentences, so the 2 July order was a nullity. On re-sentencing the Court adopted a starting point of 11 years 6 months (reflecting greater than courier role), enhanced by 12 months for aggravating factors to 12 years 6 months, then reduced by 50% to 6 years 3 months. The drug trafficking sentence was ordered to run 6 years consecutively and 3 months concurrently with…
27 Mar 2017
The Court of Appeal held the judge erred in affording only a minimal (~3%) discount for claimed self-consumption; applying Chow Chun Sang and interpreting facts most favourable to the appellant the court found a significant proportion could be regarded as for self-consumption and awarded a 10% discount from the starting point for count 5, and further held the possession sentence (count 3) derived from the same source as count 5 and should run concurrently; consequence: sentence recalculated and aggregate sentence fixed at 5 years 8 months imprisonment.
5 Sept 2016
The Court allowed the appeal and varied sentence because, applying sentencing principles for indecent assaults on mentally incapacitated adults, breach of trust and exploitation justified a serious starting point but absence of violence and other aggravating features, together with mitigation (guilty plea and voluntary disclosure of one incident), warranted reducing the starting point to 3 years 6 months for each count and imposing substituted sentences of 25 months (Charge 2) and 28 months (Charge 4) with a partial consecutivity of 4 months, producing an effective total of 32 months; the ori…
15 Jun 2016
Leave to appeal against sentence was granted on the narrow ground that the sentencing judge may have erred in stipulating and inadequately explaining the five‑year starting point and in failing expressly to account for the applicant's volunteered admission that led to the second charge; other grounds (double counting, equating to rape, guilty plea credit) lacked merit because the judge treated overlapping factors as one consideration and properly applied guilty plea discount.
11 May 2016
Leave to appeal against sentence was granted because the sentencing judge ordered the drug trafficking sentence to run consecutively to an existing sentence without giving reasons or demonstrating consideration of the totality principle and the issue was not canvassed or addressed in the lower court, making it appropriate for this court to permit an appeal on sentence.
14 Jan 2015
Leave to appeal was granted because there was an arguable legal error: the OSCO enhancement was applied to the discounted sentence rather than the starting point and the judge did not appear to have considered the totality principle when ordering consecutive sentences, warranting appellate consideration.
14 Nov 2014
A sentencing judge must treat offences committed on bail as an aggravating factor reflected by increasing the starting point for sentence, but such offending does not automatically justify ordering sentences to be served consecutively to existing sentences; the judge must step back, take a global view of totality and explain the reasons for any consecutive order. Where a judge failed to do so and failed to treat offending-on-bail as aggravating, the court will quash the sentences and resentence applying these principles.
27 Mar 2014
The judge erred by ordering consecutive sentences and by selecting the ICE tariff despite heroin and cocaine comprising the bulk of the narcotic; the correct approach was to aggregate the quantities, adopt the combined approach using the heroin/cocaine tariff for the 22.14g of serious narcotics with a 6 year starting point plus a 6 month uplift for multiple drugs, then reduce for guilty plea to 4 years 4 months; impose identical concurrent sentences on both charges and award costs to the appellant.