HKSAR v. LAU SIU MAN

CACC 295/2000

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 295 OF 2000

(ON APPEAL FROM HCCC 140 OF 2000)

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J U D G M E N T

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Stuart-Moore Ag CJHC (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. On 7 July 2000, the Applicant confirmed the plea he had entered in the magistrates' court on 12 May 2000 to a charge of trafficking in a mixture containing approximately 574 grammes of heroin hydrochloride when he appeared in the Court of First Instance before Lugar-Mawson J. The Applicant was sentenced to thirteen years' imprisonment to be served consecutively to a sentence of six months he was by then serving which had been imposed on 9 March 2000 in respect of an offence of possession of dangerous drugs.

2. The Applicant now seeks leave to appeal against his sentence on the ground that it was "comparatively high". He has pointed out to us, as his counsel did to the judge in the court below, that his reason for being tempted to commit this offence was that he was concerned for a member of his family who had been hospitalised. Whilst we can express every sympathy for the way he must have felt about that, it is nevertheless not something which, on a matter of this gravity, it would be proper to take into account.

3. The Applicant is aged 46 and this was his 24th conviction. Certainly his sentence was a high one compared to anything he had received in all his previous court appearances. However, the starting point of twenty years' imprisonment which had been taken by the judge was within the guidelines of The Queen v Lau Tak-ming & Others [1990] 2 HKLR 370, and the discount given was slightly over one-third to take into account the plea of guilty. The Applicant is well aware of the perils of trafficking in drugs having previously served a sentence for such an offence. The sentence cannot be criticised as being too heavy and, with a record such as the Applicant's, it might well have been longer as the record itself was an aggravating factor so far as sentence was concerned.

4. The application, therefore, must be dismissed.