HKSAR v. NG PO LAM

HCCC240/2011

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 240 OF 2011

-----------------

-----------------

---------------------------------

Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

---------------------------------

COURT: Ng Po-lam, you’ve been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to a charge of trafficking in 98.16 grammes of a mixture containing 55.43 grammes of heroin hydrochloride and 291 tablets and 1.64 grammes of tablet fragments containing 3.98 grammes of midazolam.

At around 7.20 am on 20 January this year you were carrying those drugs in a shoulder bag during a journey from Kowloon Tong MTR Station, to Wanchai MTR Station, where you were stopped by the police.

Even earlier that morning you had crossed into the Mainland and returned. The Heroin which had a street value of $71,000-odd was contained in two plastic bags. The midazolam, which had a street value of something over $14,000, was in a third plastic bag.

Your first reaction when you were arrested was to claim the drugs were for your own consumption, but today you have admitted that you were trafficking in those drugs.

You are a man with a long history of previous convictions stretching back over the years. Three of those convictions have involved trafficking offences. Your own previous experience would have told you that you could expect very serious consequences if you were caught with these drugs. Yet again you chose to take that risk.

Your age of 60 is a factor that carries very little weight when it comes to an offence of this seriousness.

The appropriate starting point in your case is 8 years’ imprisonment.

The only real mitigation in your case is your plea of guilty and for that you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.

I sentence you to 5 years 4 months’ imprisonment.