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The judgment states that on the evening of 12 November 2019, the defendant and another defendant, together with about thirty masked protesters, surrounded a 21-year-old male student at the demonstration site outside Sogo Department Store in Causeway Bay, mistakenly believing him to be an undercover police officer, forced him to open his rucksack for inspection and seized his belongings. The group then attacked the victim repeatedly with fists, kicks and umbrellas for two to three minutes. During this time, the defendant first pulled others away who were protecting the victim, then joined the crowd in the assault, causing the victim to suffer contusions to his ear and multiple haematomas on his scalp, and lose his mobile phone and identity documents; the assault was recorded by CCTV and news media.
This case involves the offences of riot and wounding, for which there are no established sentencing guidelines. The judgment, citing the Court of Appeal’s view, holds that sentencing for riot must balance upholding the rule of law, public order and deterrence, and typically immediate custody is appropriate, with a suitable starting point of 42 months’ imprisonment; sentencing for wounding is determined according to its statutory penalty.
The court considered that the violence in this case was grave, involved numerous participants and was organised, using umbrellas as cover and weapons, resulting in a serious assault on the victim causing bodily injury and property loss. The defendant’s favourable guilty plea, good background and lack of previous convictions warranted a reduction of the sentence from the starting point to 28 months, with a further discretionary reduction of two months.
The judge considered that such use of violence to suppress dissent, undermining the rule of law and social order, is tantamount to tyranny, severely damages Hong Kong’s reputation, must not be condoned, must be severely punished and send a clear message to the public.
The defendant was sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment for each of the offences of riot and wounding, with the sentences to be served concurrently, totalling 26 months’ imprisonment. (Translated from Chinese to English by AI)
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