24 Jul 2024
The Court held that both applicants provided practical, useful and truthful assistance that led to the arrest and conviction of a co‑accused; there was no evidence of real or ongoing risk to the applicants or their families; such assistance justifies a 50% total discount, and therefore the sentences were reduced accordingly.
20 May 2024
The Court held the starting point of 10 years' imprisonment (the statutory maximum) was appropriate for a solicitor who, in breach of trust, caused the complete loss of US$10 million to the victim with no restitution prospect; Ngo Van Nam's revised guilty plea discount practice applied to the appellant at sentencing; the judge was entitled to reject the appellant's mitigation as implausible without prior notice to defence; the assistance already afforded merited a greater discount than given by the judge (increased from 3 to 6 months); adjusting only for that, the sentence was reduced from 7…
8 Feb 2022
The magistrate lawfully exercised sentencing discretion by starting from established precedents and increasing the sentence due to the large total quantity, high street value and local prevalence; there was no basis to find the resulting concurrent sentences of one month and four months manifestly excessive, so the appeal is dismissed.
5 Nov 2021
Leave to appeal against sentence was refused because the sentencing judge applied the correct starting point and international enhancement in line with guidelines, and appropriately discounted the sentence for the guilty plea and assistance; there was no apparent error and the sentence was not manifestly excessive.
2 Jul 2021
The trial judge applied established sentencing authorities and appropriate starting points, correctly adjusted for aggravating factors and plea timing, applied concurrent execution where offences were of distinct nature, and the aggregate 33‑month sentence was within the permissible range; allegations of improper aggravation or counsel misconduct were unsupported by the record, therefore the leave application and appeal are dismissed.
20 Mar 2020
Leave to appeal was refused on the challenge to the notional 9‑year starting point because the combined approach and enhancements for a substantial packaging/trafficking operation and prior offending made the starting point supportable; leave was granted to Ma on the discrete legal question whether and to what extent a sentencing court may take into account that a defendant gave evidence for a co‑defendant and was disbelieved when reducing the guilty plea discount.
25 Jul 2018
The judge's sentence was set aside because she failed to take into account the applicant's assistance in enabling D2's apprehension; the Court of Appeal found the applicant would have agreed to testify and her assistance was of considerable value, and therefore awarded an overall sentencing discount of 43.5%, reducing the sentence to 13 years 4 months' imprisonment.
9 Nov 2016
Leave to appeal out of time was granted. The sentencing judge had not applied a sufficiently methodical calculation of starting point, international enhancement and discounts; the Court recalculated: starting point 21 years 7 months, international enhancement 21 months producing a notional sentence after trial of 23 years 4 months, then applied a discount for early plea and participation in a controlled delivery to arrive at 14 years 6 months; accordingly the original sentence of 15 years 4 months was reduced to 14 years 6 months.
3 Mar 2016
Leave to appeal out of time was granted because the applicant was not advised by counsel at sentencing; the sentencing judge erred in failing to state the starting point and the enhancement applied. Applying the Lau Tak Ming arithmetic yields a starting point of 16 years 3 months for 450g heroin; applying a 9‑month enhancement for the international element produces a 17‑year starting point, reduced by one‑third for the guilty plea, resulting in a sentence of 11 years and 4 months which replaces the original 12‑year sentence.
31 Dec 2015
Leave to appeal against conviction out of time and leave to appeal against sentence were refused because the applicant failed to show any reasonably arguable ground that his guilty plea was null or involuntary, provided no satisfactory explanation for not adducing fresh evidence at trial nor demonstrated its likely credibility, and the sentencing judge's assessment (including a reduced discount for a late plea) was not wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.