CRIMINAL CASE NO. 170 OF 2009
COURT: Law Yuk-leung, stand up, please. You have pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to two charges of trafficking in dangerous drugs, namely cocaine.
The simple facts are that you were stopped and searched on 5 January of this year, and you were found to be in possession of 46 grammes of a substance containing 27 grammes of cocaine, which you said that you were delivering for someone.
When police searched your home a little while later they found more dangerous drugs, a 170 grammes containing a 102 grammes of cocaine, plus dealer equipment such as digital scales, plastic bags and spoons.
So the total quantity of dangerous drugs which you were trafficking at that time is 217 grammes of a solid containing 129 grammes of cocaine. That had an estimated value of around about $170,000.
I know you have been told that sentencing for trafficking in dangerous drugs is based upon guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal to ensure that all traffickers in a particular type of dangerous drug are dealt with on the same basis, because that is fair to all such offenders.
Your case, involving as it does the dangerous drug cocaine, is one where the same guidelines apply as for heroin. The court looks at the narcotic content, which here is 129 grammes, to assess the appropriate sentence. As I mentioned to your counsel a few minutes ago, I need to look at the overall amount of the drugs. There are two charges, but there is one transaction of trafficking, not two. The appropriate sentencing bracket is that covering quantities of 50 to 200 grammes, for which sentences of 8 to 12 years’ imprisonment are prescribed as a starting point. That is the sentence that would be imposed on an offender convicted after trial.
Whether you come within that bracket is not an exact mathematical calculation, but I need to find the approximate appropriate place in the bracket which, in your case, I judge to be 9 years 9 months’ imprisonment. I regard that as the minimum figure appropriate to your case. I could justify a higher figure slightly, even one in excess of 10 years. But I am satisfied that in all the circumstances 9 years 9 months is appropriate.
You are entitled to a discount from that starting point of one-third, which covers your plea of guilty, and all the mitigation that is available to you. I have heard about your job and the commendations you have received in regard to that. I have heard about your family problems, especially financial problems, which you say has led you, at the age of 32, to commit this serious offence.
You are not somebody with any significant record of previous convictions; I can ignore that matter in 2001. I have read letters from you and from your family members. I might say I don’t see this as a case where your parents should blame themselves, as they do, for some lack of proper parenting. I do not think this is their fault. This is your fault entirely. This is you chasing after a financial gain, which I dare say was going to be rather greater than the $500 a day which you admit.
These matters - and I have had regard to all of the matters that have been put forward on your behalf today - these matters lead to that one-third discount from the starting point which I have indicated.
You pleaded guilty before the magistrate, and therefore at the first possible opportunity. You do not receive any extra discount for that on the rules laid down by the Court of Appeal which bind this court. But I have taken, as I have already said, as low a starting point as I feel that I can. If you were somebody who, as quite often happens, had indicated a plea of not guilty all the way through and had pleaded guilty on the day of your trial, as sometimes happens in this court, I would not have taken the starting point quite as low as 9 years 9 months. So I have tried, so far as I can, to reflect your early plea, which is to be encouraged, in the sentence that you ultimately receive.
The discount that I have indicated of one-third reduces that term of 9 years 9 months to 6 years 6 months. That is the overall term that you are to serve. But bearing in mind that there are two charges here, I must divide that sentence between those two charges in a somewhat arbitrary fashion.
The sentence, therefore, on the 1st charge is one of 2 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. The sentence on the 2nd charge is one of 4 years’ imprisonment, which will be consecutive.
The total is 6 years and 6 months.