A Hong Kong court granted immediate release to a man on Friday after quashing his eight-year jail term for possessing a gun and ammunition at home.
Bank manager Castor Chan was released from custody on Friday after the Court of Appeal ruled that his sentence for one count of possession of arms and ammunition without a licence should have been four years and eight months rather than eight years.
Chan was intercepted by police at his home in Hung Shui Kiu in June 2020, where officers found a pistol with a target pointer, 390 rounds of ammunition and four magazines designed to store the ammunition. He has been detained since.
The police also uncovered a baton, pistol stands, pistol grips and plastic bullets among other items from Chan’s home.
Chan, who was said to be a gun enthusiast, pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced to eight years behind bars by High Court judge Susana Maria D’Almada Remedios in January 2022. She had adopted 12 years as a the starting jail term for an offence that was punishable by up to 14 years in prison. A one-third reduction was offered to Chan for his guilty plea.
Chan’s lawyers argued that the judge had “wrongly and unfairly inflated the sentence.” They also criticised her for not specifying the enhancement in sentence in respect of each aggravating factor.
Pistol not fired
In a written judgement released on Friday, Acting Chief Judge of the High Court Andrew Macrae and Justice of Appeal Kevin Zervos ruled the current case was not the most severe case of its type and Chan’s sentence should have been a “medium level of the scale of such offences.”
The prosecution confirmed that although the pistol was functional, it was not fired and the ammunition was kept in its original packaging. There was also a lack of evidence to show that Chan had used the pistol and ammunition, or had physically carried them to a public place or thought of doing so, the judges ruled.
The starting point of the offence committed by Chan should not have exceeded seven years of imprisonment, the appeal panel ruled.
“In our view, the present case is certainly not a very bad case of its type, which would have warranted a starting point as high as 12 years’ imprisonment,” the judgement read.
The judges ruled that Chan be released immediately.
