HKSAR v. WONG SUK MEI

DCCC 909/2013

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 909 OF 2013

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

2.  You admitted that on 18 July at about 4.45 am outside your block of residence at Tung Chau Mansion, No 235 Tai Kok Tsui Road, you unlawfully trafficked in 6.49 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 6.31 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride otherwise known as “Ice”. 

3.  On that day two uniformed police officers who were on patrol in Tai Kok Tsui saw you coming out from your residential your block.  They saw you getting on board a taxi when there was another person seated in the taxi already.  As they saw you and the other person acting furtively, you were both intercepted and searched by the officers. Nothing illicit was found from the other person.  However, upon search of your body, the drugs were found in the waistband of your trousers.

4.  You were arrested for possession of a dangerous drug and under caution you claimed that you brought the “Ice” to the other person whereas the other person denied knowledge of the “Ice” found upon you. You thus admitted that you were trafficking in the drugs. 

5.  Your solicitor, Mr Raymond Ng, has mitigated thoroughly on your behalf before me.  He has properly referred me to the trafficking guidelines in “Ice” in the case of Attorney General v Ching Kwok Hung CAAR 15/1990. 

6.  Mr Ng submits there are two issues for this court in discounting the usual starting point.  He says there are grounds for reducing the starting point, firstly, as part of the drugs were going to be for your own consumption; and secondly, that the drugs were to be brought to the other person in the taxi for you to share with that person and thus it is what is known as social trafficking in drugs. 

7.  I turn to the second argument in respect of the social trafficking.  Although Mr Ng has not strenuously argued this point, he has raised it.  I have informed him during his submissions that, firstly, these drugs were not of a small quantity which is usually regarded to be for social or non-commercial trafficking.  In short, I do not accept that these drugs that you had in your possession were for the purposes of social trafficking. 

8.  You were unemployed at that time.  You were living on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance.   These were a large quantity of drugs.  You had left your house in the small hours of the morning, at about 4.45.  If you were going to share any of these drugs with another person, I do not accept that there was going to be no financial motive or no financial return for your sharing of the drugs given your financial circumstances.

9.  Further, the sharing of the drugs would have been a very small quantity, if any, and not the larger quantity which you had in your possession.  You were leaving your house with this large quantity of drugs, if it was just sharing, you would have just taken a small amount out and not such a large amount.  In those circumstances, I do not accept that this case warrants any further discount on the basis that this was for a non-commercial trafficking or for the purposes of social trafficking. 

10.  Turning to the other issue of the drugs being partly for your own consumption.

11.  Defendant, you are aged 32 and are of clear record.  I am informed that you have been a drug abuser for the last 10 years. In your mother’s heartfelt letter to the court, she has said that since the break-up between you and your boyfriend, you then mixed with bad peers and became involved in drugs and eventually became a completely different person. 

12.  I accept that part of these drugs were for your own consumption.  This is not disputed by the prosecution.  In the case of HKSAR v Chow Chun Sang CACC 135/2011, the court there held that a 10 to 25 per cent discount may be given from the starting point if some or part of the drugs were for self-use. 

13.  Defendant, this is your very first offence.  You have been out of trouble for 32 years of your life.  This offence which you have committed, as you know now, is a very serious offence which warrants an immediate custodial sentence.  You yourself have told me in your letter that had it not been for your drug addiction, you would never have made this mistake.  That I believe is probably true. 

14.  Drugs may give you a short period of euphoria but give you a long, long term of sadness and misery as you have now experienced more so since the commission of this offence. 

15.  Defendant, taking the guidelines laid down in the case of Ching Kwok Hung, had I convicted you after trial, taking into account all the mitigating factors, I would have taken a starting point of 60 months’ imprisonment given the quantity of drugs involved.  I discount from that starting point 6 months for part of the drugs being for your self-use and that would reduce that term to one of 54 months.

16.  From that 54-month starting point, defendant, you have pleaded guilty and your plea of guilty warrants the one-third discount.  And in giving you that discount, that will reduce the term to one of 36 months to which you shall be so sentenced, or 3 years’ imprisonment.