1. On 3 November 2016, the Appellant was driving a private car when his offside front wheel pressed against the left foot of a pedestrian who was crossing the road from a safety island. 2. On 1 June 2018, the Appellant, acting in person, pleaded guilty to a charge of careless driving contrary to section 38(1) of the Road Traffic Ordinance (Cap. 374). After the summary of facts was read and agreed, the Appellant was convicted by the Magistrate. The Appellant then contended during mitigation that although he was careless, (1) the pedestrian unexpectedly extended her foot onto the road and he was unable to stop his car; (2) he did not know how the incident could have been avoided; (3) he could not avoid the pedestrian despite already stopping his car immediately, and (4) he had already stopped the car immediately. 3. The court adjourned the case to obtain a community service report before sentencing. It was stated in the report that the Appellant maintained his story of how the accident happened, and insisted he was innocent, and that he had only pleaded guilty in order to save time. 4. In the meantime, the Appellant engaged counsel and made an application to the court to reverse his guilty plea on the ground that his plea was equivocal and the conviction could not stand. 5. On 6 July 2017, the Magistrate dismissed the Appellant’s application and held that because the Appellant understood the charge, admitted the facts and upon the court’s enquiry also made an admission to the elements to the charge, there was thus no inconsistency with his guilty plea, which was an unequivocal one. 6. On appeal, the Court of First Instance upheld the Appellant’s conviction. The Judge observed that the only issue was whether the Appellant’s plea was equivocal. As the Magistrate had clarified with the Appellant during his mitigation submission and confirmed his admission of driving carelessly, there was nothing improper with the way the Magistrate dealt with the matter. The statements the Appellant made to the probation officer, as stated in the community service report, were irrelevant. 7. The Appellant brought a further appeal to this Court against the decision of the Court of First Instance. ISSUES 8. The Court clarified the legal principles on the reversal of guilty pleas. 9. Firstly, a plea is equivocal if a defendant adds to his plea of guilty a qualification which, if true, may show that he is not guilty of the offence charged. An equivocal plea cannot be accepted and cannot form the basis of a conviction. A conviction resulting from the erroneous acceptance of an equivocal plea is a nullity and must be set aside; no discretion is involved. 10. Secondly, whether a plea is equivocal is to be determined at the time it is made. The terminology employed in some previous case law was wrong and must be clarified: anything that is said or comes to light after conviction cannot and does not retrospectively turn an unequivocal plea into an equivocal one; it instead may form the basis of an application to invoke the court’s discretion to allow a reversal of plea. In the current appeal, the Appellant’s plea was an unequivocal one. His allegations during mitigation and to the probation officer did not turn his unequivocal plea into an equivocal one. 11. Thirdly, a conviction is not complete and the court’s jurisdiction over the matter does not lapse until sentence is passed. Where, as in the current appeal, material emerges after conviction but before sentence which, if true, may show that the defendant is not guilty of the offence charged, the court has a discretion to allow a change of plea. 12. Fourthly, such discretion is an unfettered one. The way the court exercises it must turn on the facts, and the overriding consideration must be the interests of justice. In the current appeal, where material emerged in mitigation and reports suggesting that the Appellant might not be guilty of the offence charged, the interests of justice would weigh heavily in favour of allowing a reversal of plea. Further, while an equivocal plea is defined by the threshold of a qualification that, if true, may show that the defendant is not guilty of the offence charged, for the purposes of invoking the court’s discretion on allowing a reversal of plea, the threshold need not be so and could be lower. DISPOSITION 13. Accordingly, the appeal was unanimously allowed and the Appellant’s conviction was quashed. As the Appellant has already served his sentence of 150 hours of community service, retrial was exceptionally not ordered.