R. v. LI WAI KAI

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1994, No. 615
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Bokhary, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. This is an application for leave to appeal against conviction. The conviction is one of trafficking in dangerous drugs. Those drugs consisted of 55.93 grammes of a mixture containing 20.45 grammes of heroin.

2. At his trial (in the District Court before His Honour Judge Sweeney, who convicted him on November 10 last year) the applicant admitted that those drugs were found by the police on April 23 last year in a room in a building in Hung Hom, which room he occupied with his girlfriend.

3. He gave evidence to the effect that the drugs were for his own consumption: so that he was guilty of simple possession but not of trafficking.

4. The heroin was in four bags. Also found were six bags of caffeine. The caffeine weighed 150 grammes. All ten bags - four of heroin and six of caffeine - were in a re-sealable transparent plastic bag. That bag was in turn inside a black and white plastic bag. And that black and white plastic bag and its contents were inside a metal moon-cake box. The box was by the applicant's bed.

5. The caffeine, it is obvious, was to "cut" heroin. Both the prosecution and the defence said as much. But the applicant said that the heroin was to be cut not for trafficking but for his own consumption.

6. If the problem of the caffeine could be overcome as simply as that, there were other things which could not. One of those things is a small pair of scales found in the room.

7. The applicant said that the scales were his girlfriend's and that she used them to weigh letters. But that would not account for their being in the black and white plastic bag in which the applicant kept drugs. That is where the police say they found the scales. In his evidence, the applicant denied that. But the judge, as he was entitled to do, found it proved. And there is more.

8. As far as the retail value of the drugs is concerned, the evidence which the judge accepted - and was entitled to accept - was that it was almost HK$22,000.

9. There was evidence from the applicant about how much he paid for the drugs, how much he earned and so on. The judge who received such evidence at first-hand rejected it. Moreover, he pointed out that even on the applicant's own figures it was well-nigh impossible for him to maintain the drug habit which he admitted and asserted. More money had to come from somewhere.

10. It came from trafficking, the judge concluded. On the whole of the evidence, which included the evidence of where the scales were found despite the applicant's denial, the judge was fully justified in so concluding.

There was plenty of evidence to support the judge's verdict. And there is nothing to impeach it. Leave to appeal against conviction is refused.