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 jury heard Leong, who is married, had remained homeless and lost contact with his family since arriving in Hong Kong in 2007. He told the judge that he had overstayed in the area since then and exhausted his pocketbook of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He said he was materially centered on his partner he met in the area, but the pair encountered economic difficulties after the anti-government protests in 2019 and the crisis that followed.
On Jul 1, 2020, the centenarian approached a Prince Edward tree of store chain Mannings with a bottle of water and a report that said:” If you want to live, rush or you will be burned with petrol”.
He showed the written danger to a seller, who was unmoved and ejected the accused from the store before calling authorities.
Researchers had closed the case as an unsettled murder and disposed of the document left behind by the blame after failing to raise 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 destructive air gun before a banker, who withdrew 14 HK$ 1, 000 coins from a particular system, triggering a silent alarm alerting the company’s boss.
A bank staff who witnessed the assault from the edge lost sight of the Singaporean after a fight, but police were yet able to identify the culprit and arrest him the same day at his home in Pat Heung’s Yuen Kong village.
Following complaints revealed Leong was the gentleman raiding the Mannings shop in Prince Edward.
Leong told authorities he had spent some of the ill-gotten gains to buy a handbag, major up his Octopus cash cards and live a HK$ 7, 500 debt owed to his landlord.
He added that he only learnt the seized money was HK$ 14, 000 in full from the information.
Asked about the failed assault in 2020, Leong said he committed the crime as he had defaulted on his regular lease payment.
In punishment, Justice Douglas Yau Tak-hong said Leong’s usage of emulation firearms and menace to employ force in the two robberies called for a warning sentence despite his advanced age and bad 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.