- 2 term of 21 months on each conviction but ordered that they were to be concurrent. The Appellant now appeals against those terms of imprisonment. On an appeal against sentence, an appellate court is required to have regard to whether the sentence passed was manifestly excessive in the circumstances, or wrong in principle. Mr. H. Y. Wong who appears on behalf of the Appellant here but not below submitted, inter alia, that the Appellant is 24 years old, a Japanese national who worked as a computer technician in Hong Kong. He also has been of previous good character. Mr. Wong put forward three grounds of appeal the aggregate complaints of which were that the starting point of 30 months was too high because the statutory maximum was 36 months, that the reduction of 9 months for a plea of Guilty was not sufficient, that it was wrong in principal to pass a deterrent sentence on a first offender. In support of his contention in respect of the deterrent sentence ground, he cited the well known case of HO Kau v. R. [1978] HKLR 197. Mr. Granville Cross S.C. with Mr. Vincent Wong who appear for the Respondent submitted that this was a publication on the Internet and there have not been previous similar cases of such publication. What happened was that acting on information from Interpol, Vienna, the police located the Appellant’s website which eventually lead them to arrest the Appellant. Further, that this was a worst-case scenario and because of that, the personal circumstances of the Appellant pales into insignificance. 41 obscene pictures were published and 43 possessed for the purpose of publication. The case of R. v. Russell [1986] 8 Cr. App. R. (S) 367 was cited. In that case the obscene photographs were of children and on appeal, the sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment was reduced to one of 18 months. My attention was drawn to