CRIMINAL CASE NO. 400 OF 2011
COURT: On the last occasion that you had to be sentenced for this crime, the judge sent you to prison for 27 years, and he said this to you. He said:
“You have been found guilty by the jury after trial of a single charge of conspiracy to traffic in a dangerous drug. Although the charge itself does not, for understandable reasons, reflect the quantity of dangerous drugs, we know that on the day of your arrest, the quantity of drugs that was found was 4.68 kilogrammes of ‘Ice’, and it is clear from the unanimous decision of the jury that they accepted the evidence of Chan which shows that these were the drugs imported by the two of you over the three days when you went to the mainland and returned to Hong Kong. So whilst the conspiracy itself makes no reference to a quantity, it is clear that you in fact trafficked in that quantity of drugs in pursuance of the conspiracy.
Chan, who pleaded guilty to trafficking in that quantity of drugs, was sentenced to serve a period of 16 years and 6 months in gaol. I am told that in fixing that sentence, the judge took a starting point of 25 years and reduced it by a third, rounding it down very slightly by a matter of weeks, to 16½ years.
With respect to the judge concerned, I would think that 25 years was absolutely the right starting point to have taken for the role that Chan played. It is clear, however, from Chan’s evidence that you played a far more active role. You recruited him, you had the contacts in the mainland, and it was you who arranged for the supply of the drugs from the mainland.
27 years’ imprisonment strikes me as being the appropriate sentence, in those circumstances, which reflects your more active role. I see that that has been the figure upheld by the Court of Appeal in another matter which involved a very similar quantity of drugs and a similar role to that played by you.
There is no mitigation available to you which justifies reducing that sentence at all.”
Those were the words of the judge on the last occasion, and I cannot improve on them. All I will add is that the fact that Chan then went to the Court of Appeal and had his sentence reduced further merely reflected the help he had by that time, in fact, given. It did not affect his starting point, and it would be quite wrong that you both have the same starting point, given your different roles.
The sentence I pass upon you is thus the same as last time. It is 27 years’ imprisonment.