14 Apr 2010
The court upheld the sentencing approach: starting point of 18 years 6 months reduced by one-third to 12 years 4 months for the guilty plea; ordinary family hardship does not constitute exceptional humanitarian grounds to reduce sentence further, therefore the application for further reduction is dismissed.
12 Feb 2008
The magistrate's chosen starting points for the offences, the one‑third reduction for guilty pleas, and the application of the totality principle (including a four‑month concession for the appellant's disclosure) produced an overall 12‑month concurrent sentence which was appropriate; no further reduction was warranted and the appeal is dismissed.
12 Dec 2006
The court upheld the magistrate's sentencing approach: starting points of 9 and 18 months for the two copyright offences reduced to 6 and 12 months respectively for guilty pleas, and a 3 month starting point for the immigration offence reduced to 2 months; those sentences properly reflected the gravity and mitigation and the appeal is dismissed.
2 Apr 1998
The Court held that the trial judge was entitled to adopt a 24-year starting point for the principal heroin trafficking offence (consistent with Ho Chi-ming), applied a full one-third discount for mitigation/guilty plea, and that the resulting concurrent sentences (16 years and 5 years) were not excessive; therefore leave to appeal was dismissed.
5 Jun 1996
The Court allowed the Attorney General's review, holding the District Court sentences were manifestly inadequate; it determined each set of offences warranted an overall three-year term (with specified individual terms), applied a one-third reduction for plea, ordered concurrency except that the third theft sentence commence after one year of concurrent terms, and, after giving weight to time already served and the substantial increase, fixed the total sentence at two years' imprisonment.