Another bail decision from the Supreme Court and Justice Refshauge.
Billy Ho Hoi was serving periodic detention in July last year for aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated robbery, contravention of a protection order and two charges of failing to appear after a bail undertaking had been given.
While at liberty he is then alleged to have committed aggravated burglary, two counts of theft, and damaging property. These charges did convince to Sentence Administration Board to suspend the periodic nature of his sentence (along with the minor matter of having already missed four of his suspension periods altogether).
The sentence for the original offences was up on 7 May and six days later Billy got bail for his new charges.
On 22 June Billy was in custody for turning up a day late under his obligation to report to police. The explanation was “he had played football on Sunday and gone home. He had fallen asleep and forgotten to report.”
But that did at least make sure he turned up to be arraigned on his charges, pleading guilty to damaging property, and getting a trial date of 9 August 2010 for the rest.
Justice Refshauge at that time decided to let Billy report to police weekly instead of daily, but sternly warned him that further breaches of bail would see him back in custody.
And then:
Just over 24 hours later, he was arrested for being in Civic after the curfew time and obviously having drunk alcohol.
…
Mr Ho Hoi explained to me that, on the evening in question, he had met some friends and they had gone drinking together. He had no real explanation for his breach. Mr R Davies, who appeared for Mr Ho Hoi, said all that could be said for him. He noted that there were no offences committed, that he was not seriously drunk and that it was not particularly long, about an hour, after the start of the curfew.
But it seems that’s alright! Billy had his bail renewed and is once more amongst us! (although he is back to daily reporting)
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