An elderly Singaporean man has been jailed for 11 years for attempting to rob a retail chain with a bottle of water and snatching HK$14,000 (US$1,802) from a bank with a toy gun after overstaying in Hong Kong for over a decade and exhausting his savings.
The High Court on Tuesday (Mar 11) sentenced Leong How-seng on a count of robbery and attempted robbery after the 75-year-old pleaded guilty on the previous day.
The court heard Leong, who is married, had remained jobless and lost contact with his wife since arriving in Hong Kong in 2007. He told the court that he had overstayed in the city since then and exhausted his savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He said he was financially dependent on his girlfriend he met in the city, but the pair encountered financial difficulties after the anti-government protests in 2019 and the pandemic that followed.
On Jul 1, 2020, the septuagenarian approached a Prince Edward branch of pharmacy chain Mannings with a bottle of water and a paper that said: “If you want to live, hurry or you will be burned with petrol.”
He showed the written threat to a salesman, who was unfazed and ejected the defendant from the shop before calling police.
Investigators had closed the case as an unresolved crime and disposed of the paper left behind by the culprit after failing to lift any fingerprints.
Leong had remained at large until a second robbery saw him run away with HK$14,000 from the China Construction Bank (Asia) in Yau Ma Tei on Apr 14, 2022.
He brandished a dysfunctional air gun before a teller, who withdrew 14 HK$1,000 banknotes from a special device, triggering a silent alarm alerting the bank’s manager.
A bank employee who witnessed the robbery from the side lost sight of the Singaporean after a chase, but police were nonetheless able to identify the perpetrator and arrest him the same day at his residence in Pat Heung’s Yuen Kong village.
Subsequent inquiries revealed Leong was the man raiding the Mannings store in Prince Edward.
Leong told police he had spent some of the ill-gotten gains to buy a bag, top up his Octopus cash card and settle a HK$7,500 debt owed to his landlord.
He added that he only learnt the stolen cash was HK$14,000 in total from the news.
Asked about the failed robbery in 2020, Leong said he committed the crime as he had defaulted on his monthly rent payment.
In sentencing, Justice Douglas Yau Tak-hong said Leong’s use of imitation firearms and threat to use force in the two robberies called for a deterrent sentence despite his advanced age and poor health.
Yau set a starting point of sentence at 5.5 years’ imprisonment for the failed robbery in 2020 and 12 years for the heist two years thereafter.
The judge reduced Leong’s sentence in light of his guilty plea and cooperation with police during the investigation, before ordering a partly concurrent sentence of 11 years.
Robbery is punishable by up to life imprisonment in Hong Kong.
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