Captain jailed over 39 deaths in Lamma ferry disaster appeals for reduction of eight-year jail sentence to 18 months
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 03 November, 2015, 3:43pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 03 November, 2015, 11:00pm
Chris Lau
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Sea Smooth captain Lai Sai-ming appearing at the High Court. Photo: Nora Tam
The jailed captain of Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry's Sea Smooth, Lai Sai-ming, should be jailed for 18 months instead of eight years, his lawyer told an appeal hearing yesterday.
Barrister Chyvette Ip argued in the Court of Appeal that the eight-year sentence failed to take into account the responsibility of others in causing 39 deaths in the Lamma Ferry tragedy three years ago.
Lai, 56, was convicted in February by a majority verdict of 39 counts of manslaughter, and unanimously, of endangering the safety of others at sea.
On October 1, 2012, his boat rammed into Hongkong Electric's Lamma IV in waters off Lamma Island.
Thirty-nine of the 124 passengers on board the Lamma IV died as the ferry sank.
"The eight years in Mr Lai's sentence has obviously focused on the outcome, not his culpability, which should be a dominant factor," Ip told Mr Justice Andrew Macrae and Mr Justice Ian McWalters.
She presented the two judges a case authority of the same nature, in which the defendant was sentenced to 18 months for two deaths.
Lai's defence had been that a missing watertight door could have been the cause of the Lamma IV's rapid sinking. And his team of lawyers earlier contended that the heavy death toll could have been caused by loose chairs that fell and trapped passengers, causing them to drown.
Ip reiterated those two points yesterday, saying that although her client was found to have a "substantial role" to play, he was not solely responsible.
She said that even though Lai should have foreseen causalities in the collision caused by his gross negligence, he could not possibly have foreseen the actual outcome - in which the Lamma IV would sink the way it did due to the defects in the ferry.
However, McWalters replied by saying: "Everything occurred because there was a collision."
Ip said the trial judge also failed to consider case authorities her defence team had submitted. Before starting her mitigation yesterday, she stressed that Lai remained deeply remorseful despite the appeal.
Prosecutor Andrew Bruce SC rebutted by saying that Lai had the ability and tools to navigate the stretch of busy water in question, and that, as the trial judge suggested, the mistake was not minor and fell far below professional standards.
Macrae and McWalters noted that the trial judge had not factored a deterrence element into the sentence. Bruce agreed with the two judges, saying that such an element could discourage gross negligence among other public-transport operators.
Ip said ferry accidents were not common, and therefore no deterrence was required.
The judges have reserved their judgment.
