CRIMINAL CASE NO. 34 OF 2009
COURT: Stand up, please, Chan Wing-keung.
Chan Wing-keung, you must know that trafficking in dangerous drugs is a very serious offence. The harm that dangerous drugs do, not only in Hong Kong but throughout the world, is very well known. In the past 20 years, both in the countries of the East, and the countries of the West, drugs have become a modern plaque. They have ruined, and are ruining, millions of people’s lives. The only people that benefit from them are the wicked, cynical people who control this filthy trade. It is controlled by people who have no morals and no sense of humanity. So seriously does the legislature of Hong Kong regard trafficking in dangerous drugs that it has set the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The fact that you were dealing in these drugs just to get a share of them, does not help you. Giving drugs away for nothing is just as serious as selling them.
Ketamine is regarded as a very hard drug. I know that your counsel, Mr Allan, will have told you that the Court of Appeal have set guidelines as to how all judges are to sentence people who traffic in Ketamine. He will have also told you that judges are expected to stick to those guidelines unless there are very strong reasons for them not to do so. I have to tell you that in your case there are no very strong reasons that would justify me departing from the guidelines.
It is unfortunate for you that the Court of Appeal revised those guideline sentences upwards in June of 2008, three months before you committed your offence. My duty is clear: I have to apply the guidelines, the ones that were set in June of last year.
I note that you have a conviction for possession of dangerous drugs, for which on 16 October of last year you were sentenced to 3 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months. As you committed the offence with which I am concerned, on 27 September of last year, I have no power to activate that suspended sentence. I also make it clear that I am not increasing the sentence I am going to pass on you because you have a criminal record for possession of dangerous drugs.
Since this trial started last Monday I have noted the very strong support you have received from your family. Very rarely have I seen such strong family support. You are truly lucky to have such a supportive family. Your sister’s letter, which was read to me this morning, very eloquently shows the love they have for you and the distress that your very great foolishness has caused all of them. You must not abuse their love and trust in the future.
Your mitigation, in fact your only mitigation, lies in the fact that you have pleaded guilty. A plea of guilty will always earn its maker a substantial reduction in sentence. A plea of guilty indicates remorse, it demonstrates realism, and it shows an acceptance of responsibility for the offender’s wrongdoing. Had you made that plea of guilty before the trial started - you could have done so in the magistrates’ court, or at the very beginning of the trial, last Monday - I would have been able to have given you a one-third reduction of the sentence that you would have received had you taken the matter to trial and been convicted by a jury.
Because your plea of guilty came after the trial had started, and after evidence has been led, and after I had made a ruling on admissibility of certain evidence, I cannot give you such a large discount. However, the discount you will receive is a substantial one. Following the Court of Appeal’s guidelines I have already spoken of, for this quantity of Ketamine, where there was 385.68 grammes of the stuff in 498.21 grammes of powder, had you persisted in your plea of not guilty, had a jury been sworn, had the trial gone its full length and had the jury convicted you of the 1st count on the indictment, I would have sentenced you to 9 years’ imprisonment. Because of your plea of guilty I am reducing that sentence by 2 years, which is an over 20 per cent discount.
Therefore, your sentence of imprisonment for the offence you have admitted committing is one of 7 years’ imprisonment.