CRIMINAL CASE NO. 346 OF 2010
COURT: Chan Kwok-ying, you have been committed for sentence to the Court of First Instance upon your plea of guilty to a single charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, an offence that took place on 23 June 2010 in Sham Shui Po.
The facts of your offence,which you admitted before the Magistrate,show that on the afternoon of that day you were intercepted by police officers, who searched you. In your trousers pocket were two plastic bags of what turned out to be a mixture containing ketamine. The backpack you were carrying was searched, and a further 17 resealable plastic bags of a mixture containing ketamine were found.
You made immediate admissions to the effect that you were delivering the ketamine for someone to earn some money because you were out of work, and that the drugs in the backpack were there because you had not wanted to leave them at home for fear of incriminating your family members.
When you were interviewed formally, you repeated your admissions, and you said that a person had asked you if you were interested in helping to deliver ketamine and that you would receive $800 to $900 daily as remuneration. You agreed to do so. In due course, this person gave you a prepaid SIM card, telling you to wait for a call, and eventually, acting on instructions, you collected a bag of ketamine from an electricity meter cupboard on a rear staircase of a building.
You stored it temporarily at home, and were later given more instructions as to the delivery of that ketamine, and, as I mentioned earlier, you said you had removed it all from your home to make sure that no trouble was caused to your family members.
The total mixture in the plastic bags which you were carrying was 347.92 grammes, and when that was examined by the Government Chemist, it was found to contain 295.09 grammes of ketamine, the dangerous drug.
That is the figure which appears in the charge to which you have pleaded guilty, and,as you know, it is that figure of 295.09 grammes of ketamine which provides the primary basis for sentencing in your case, as in other trafficking dangerous drugs cases where the narcotic element is the first thing that is considered.
The Court of Appeal has laid down guidelines for different types of dangerous drugs so that different offenders are sentenced on a more or less equal footing. I must apply those guidelines to your case. Your case falls on the lower edge of the bracket of 300 to 600 grammes of ketamine, for which sentences of 9 to 12 years’ imprisonment are prescribed by the Court of Appeal.
Miss Wong, counsel on your behalf, points out that it therefore falls on the upper edge of the next band down which relates to 50 to 300 grammes of ketamine, for which sentences of 6 to 9 years’ imprisonment are laid down as the appropriate tariff.
Where a case such as this falls so close to the dividing line between one band and another, it is not for the court to engage in some mathematical exercise as to which band should be selected.
I am satisfied that it is just to treat you as an offender trafficking in 300 grammes of ketamine, especially given the fact that you were trafficking as a courier in the chain of delivery and were out in the street with these drugs, away from home, and therefore closer to the hands of users.
Now, the sentences laid down by the Court of appeal are starting points for sentence which must be adjusted to reflect the mitigation. In your case, the substantial mitigation available to you is your plea of guilty. I recognise that it is not the only mitigation. You are a man of 30 years of age. Your record includes only one matter in 2003, a possession of drugs case for which you were fined in the Magistracy, so you have no significant or substantial record. Miss Wong has delivered to the court on your behalf a substantial mitigation submission in written form which I have read and which I take into account.
I recognise your remorse for your offence, for the impact that it has caused on your family. I take into account the letters that have been delivered from your brother and from Father Wotherspoon, the priest who has to some degree taken you under his wing whilst you have been in custody.
These aspects of mitigation are included in the discount, the substantial discount which is given to somebody like you who has pleaded guilty, because the sentence is reduced by one‑third from what it would have been if you had been convicted after trial by a jury and did not have this mitigation available to you.
I judge that the proper starting point in your case must be 9 years’ imprisonment, and I reduce that to 6 years’ imprisonment to reflect your mitigation.
Therefore, the sentence is 6 years’ imprisonment.