COURT: This is the sentence of the court.
The defendant had pleaded not guilty to the offence of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely, about 180 grammes of ketamine.
I do not think I need to recite the facts again for the purpose of sentence as the circumstances had been fully canvassed during the trial.
Basically, it was a case where the police officers, after a long ambush, caught the defendant trying to retrieve the bag of ketamine from a firebox installed at the end of the corridor on the 17th floor of Wah Lim House. The defendant’s fingerprint was found on the other plastic bag that was also hidden inside the firebox, together with the bag of drugs. This other bag contained many smaller resealable plastic bags, and these two bags were clearly connected.
Defence counsel said in mitigation that the defendant was still young - in fact he was only 16-odd years old in last year, March.
Counsel reminded this court that this is a re-trial, but it was not by reason of the defendant’s fault. The defendant suffered from anxiety because of the delay. Defence counsel asked this court to show sympathy to the defendant and grant a certain discount in the sentence.
Considering the authority Hii Siew Cheng, which is a translation, the range of sentence for this amount of ketamine would be 6 to 9 years. After assessment, I shall adopt a starting point of 7½ years. There can be no discount on account of the defendant’s remorse. Actually, I can find no remorse shown by the defendant. In fact, he had during the trial made very serious allegations against the police officers involved, and these serious allegations had been obviously rejected by the jurors.
Nowadays, young age is no longer a mitigating factor. But, after all, the defendant is still relatively young and this is his first conviction, and now he is faced with a lengthy sentence. In these circumstances, I am prepared to reduce the sentence by six months.
So the sentence is therefore 7 years.
I hope the defendant would learn through the programmes offered by the Correctional institution in order to lead a more disciplined and fruitful life.
I am sure the defendant still has a future if he is prepared to change now.