Jacky Ma’s affirmation
64. Jacky Ma’s affirmation in support of his application for leave to appeal against sentence out-of-time imposed on him on 1 April 2011 was filed with the Court on 9 August 2012. The affirmation did not address the issue of why the application was made out-of-time. Rather, it addressed two issues. First, it was contended that the judge had erred in stipulating a starting point for sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment. Secondly, it was submitted that the judge had afforded Jacky Ma an insufficient discount of sentence for “…being a tainted witness to testify against other defendants.” In that context, Jacky Ma said “Based on justice and my regret about committing the offence, I decided to be a tainted witness to testify against other defendants in the same case, and gave a detailed statement for this reason.” Given the chronology of events, no doubt the reference to the “detailed statement” was a reference to the non-prejudicial statement made by Jacky Ma on 7 March 2011.
65. In the affirmation, Jacky Ma made specific reference to a case in which, so it was asserted, Chan Ying Kin had pleaded guilty to what appears to have been a conspiracy to throw corrosive fluid over a victim, at the behest of a Triad leader against whom he testified and who was convicted and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. It was noted that the defendant/prosecution witness had received a discount of 50% from the starting point of 12 years’ imprisonment.
66. On 11 April 2012, Jacky Ma had identified the applicant in an Identification Parade as Sai Fai. However, the applicant was not charged
