HKSAR v. LAU MAN HONG

DCCC 234/2013

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 234 OF 2013

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, I convicted you after trial of a charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

2.  I found that on 12 December 2012 outside No. 67D Carpenter Road, Kowloon City, Kowloon, you unlawfully trafficked in 23.96 grammes of a solid containing 16.99 grammes of cocaine.  On the day in question, police officers had conducted a dangerous drugs operation at Carpenter Road.  After observing you for about 3 minutes at about 0042 hours, they approached you and searched your person.  Found in your right front jeans pocket was the drugs in question.  You were arrested for trafficking in a dangerous drug and under caution you said “I have nothing to say and I want to see a lawyer.”  Also found upon your person were two mobile phones and money amounting to HK$15,859.

3.  The street value of the drugs found upon your person was in the sum of $24,966.  I had drawn the irresistible inference that you, not being a drug addict, being out in the streets late at night away from home combined with the large quantity of drugs and value of drugs in your possession, that that supported the supply of drugs to others.

4.  Ms Vivian Wong, counsel, has mitigated fully and thoroughly on your behalf.  I have taken into account all that she has had to say.  You are now aged 20 and were 19 years at the date of the offence.  You have six previous convictions which occurred on five separate occasions.  Your first brush with the law was when you were 14 years of age in 2007 for an offence of fraud.  Your other convictions relate to violence and conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice.  You had been sentenced to Probation and Rehabilitation Centre on those various offences.  You are single and your parents are divorced.  You live alternatively with your father and mother.  I am told that you are a real estate worker working with your father.  You have been educated up to Form 5. 

5.  I have taken into account the contents of the letter your mother has written to this court.  She pleads with this court to give you leniency. She has told me, and so has your counsel, that you whilst in secondary school they had discovered that you suffer from hyperactive disorder.  Having taken you to a psychiatrist, they had given you medication which made you drowsy and thus affected your studies. 

6.  Ms Wong has very properly pointed out that the courts are guided by tariffs laid down in the Court of Appeal for trafficking in dangerous drugs.  The case to which the tariff guideline is laid down for cocaine is that of R v Lau Tak Ming. As rightly pointed out by Ms Wong, youth is not an exception or strong mitigating factor in this very serious offence of trafficking in dangerous drugs. 

7.  Defendant, considering the amount of drugs that you had the tariff falls within the second bracket of between 10 and 50 grammes of which a sentence of 5 to 8 years would be appropriate after trial.  The amount of drugs involved in this case was 16.99 grammes of cocaine. In following the tariff guideline, having convicted you after trial, I sentence you to 5 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.

(S. D’Almada Remedios)  District Judge