At about 7.43 in the evening on 6 June 2018, the defendant was intercepted by police at the lift lobby on the ground floor of Eaton Hotel. As body search was conducted on the defendant, the relevant drugs involved in respect of the 1st charge were found on him. The defendant indicated he had rented Room 1408 of the hotel. A search was conducted on the relevant room and the drugs involved in relation to the 2nd charge were found inside the room.
The estimated street value of the cocaine seized in respect of the two charges was just over HK$300,000.
Now, the defendant is now 28 years old. He was born in Hong Kong and received local education up to Form 5. He was married and has a 5-year-old son. He has two criminal conviction record, one in relation to smoking dangerous drugs which was committed in 2014 and the other gambling in a place not a gambling establishment which was committed in 2016.
In mitigation, Ms Ng, counsel for the defendant, submitted letters written by the defendant’s parents and also the defendant. Ms Ng submitted to this court that, as can be seen from the letters, the defendant is now genuinely remorseful. Ms Ng also submitted that 12 grammes of the drugs seized were for the defendant’s self-consumption together with his friend, and as indicated during test report by the Correctional Service Department, the defendant had consumed cocaine recent to when he was arrested.
However, as I have indicated during my exchange with Ms Ng, in order to accord a discount for self-consumption for sentencing to the defendant, this court has to be satisfied that a substantial part of the drugs involved are for the defendant’s own consumption. This principle was stated in the Court of Appeal case in HKSAR v Wong Suet Hau. In this case, the quantity of drugs involved is substantial. In the present case, most of the drugs were found inside the room of the hotel which was rented by the defendant and apparently there is no other purpose for the defendant renting the said room apart from for the purpose of trafficking drugs. I am not satisfied that a substantial part of the drugs involved were for the defendant’s own consumption.
Now, trafficking in dangerous drugs is a very serious offence. The Court of Appeal has laid down sentencing tariff in respect of different kinds of dangerous drugs. For trafficking in cocaine, this court should consider the case of R v Lau Tak Ming in considering sentence. For trafficking of cocaine in the quantities of 50 to 200 grammes, the range of sentence should be 8 to 12 years’ imprisonment. For trafficking in a quantity of 200 to 400 grammes of cocaine, the starting point for sentence should be in the range of 12 to 15 years’ imprisonment.
For the purpose of sentencing, I agree with Ms Ng that in this case this court should take a global approach. The overall quantities of cocaine involved for the two charges in this case is just over 200 grammes. In my view, taking into account the quantity of the drugs involved in this case and the defendant’s background and situation, the appropriate starting point, overall starting point for sentence should be 12 years’ imprisonment.
In respect of the 1st charge, I will adopt a starting point of 6-year imprisonment and take into account the defendant’s guilty plea and to reduce the sentence to 4 years’ imprisonment.
For the 2nd charge, I will adopt a starting point of 12 years’ imprisonment and taking into account the defendant’s guilty plea, the sentence be reduced to 8 years. And I order that the sentence for the two charges be served concurrently.