COURT: The defendant is 47 years old. He had, until his arrest on this matter, been an addict of methamphetamine hydrochloride, better known as “Ice”, since the age of 39. It is therefore not surprising that he is no stranger to the courts.
After much earlier offences of no relevance to this case, he received a 6 months’ sentence in 2011 for possession of dangerous drugs. This proved to have no deterrent effect whatsoever because on 15 October 2013 the defendant received a total sentence of 5 years and 4 months’ imprisonment on charges of trafficking and possession of dangerous drugs, and now the defendant is once again in trouble as a result of drugs.
The decision in the case of Mok Cho Tik[2001] 1 HKC 261, it is helpful in finding an appropriate sentence in a case of this kind. I am satisfied that the proper starting point after trial would normally be 18 months’ imprisonment. However here, there was plainly a high latent risk factor in the sense that some of this quantity of “Ice” might find its way into the hands of another person because the defendant has trafficked in drugs before. Both this and the defendant’s record are aggravating factors which, in my view, should attract an additional sentence of 12 months, making 30 months in all after trial.
However, the defendant has pleaded guilty to possession from an early stage. Indeed, he admitted it to the police who arrested him. Accordingly, he will receive a full discount.
Yes, Mr Ho, would you stand, please? Your sentence, for the reasons that I have explained and of course the time spent in custody will count towards it, is one of 20 months’ imprisonment.
I want to add to that that you should never have been made to stand trial on trafficking on the facts of this case. I made that plain at the case management hearing some weeks before the trial, and it is perfectly apparent that the Department of Justice has failed lamentably to do its job in this case. No judge, on the facts of this case, could have asked a jury to convict of trafficking. A decision of that sort would have been pure speculation and guesswork.
In the result, despite the obvious absence of any evidence of trafficking, we had to swear a jury last week on 3 December. The defence case, which was also the prosecution’s case, was admitted in its entirety. So the trial lasted all of one hour and five minutes before I was able to direct the jury to acquit on trafficking. This had been a complete waste of the jury’s time, and the Department of Justice should have known better than to squander public resources on a prosecution which had no prospect of success whatever. This should have been apparent to any sensible criminal lawyer, particularly after attention had been drawn to the absence of any evidence on which a jury could convict of trafficking.
Before you leave court, you are very fortunate in having an extremely loyal girlfriend and also employer. This probably is the last chance. Make sure you make use of it. Thank you, that is all.