CRIMINAL CASE NO. 394 OF 2009
COURT: Accused, Tang Yuk-sim, you may remain seated. On 11 June last year, you were seen alighting from the front passenger seat of a car which had just parked at the 1st floor car park of the Wing Kin Industrial Building, Kwai Tsing, New Territories. You were carrying a bag of ketamine powder which is the subject of the 1st count on the indictment.
You were arrested and cautioned, after which you said that you were carrying the ketamine for someone else for $1,500. You said you knew nothing else. Later that day, the premises where you resided, in Waterloo Road, were searched and 290 ketamine pills were found in a bedroom, all of which you admitted were yours.
The value of the drugs in both counts is accepted to be about $182,000.
You were, at the time of the offences, 20 years of age and it is one of the tragedies of these offences that someone so young can get caught up in a trade which necessarily leads to imprisonment for much of their young adult life. Your counsel has made a very full and helpful address in mitigation and it is clear to me that you were someone who was essentially a good girl with a promising academic future who simply came off the rails and that compounds the tragedy.
The operative quantity of narcotic for sentencing purposes in respect of Count 1 is 1,272.07 grammes of ketamine. In respect of Count 3, it is 7.14 grammes of ketamine and 0.79 grammes of barbitone.
There are two issues I need to confront in your sentence. The first is the starting points of those amounts in each count. The second concerns the question of whether any of the sentence on Count 3 should be made consecutive to the sentence on Count 1.
The sentencing bands set out in Secretary for Justice v Hii Siew Cheng [2009] Vol. 1 HKLRD at 1, run out at 1,000 grammes and for quantities over 1,000 grammes, the sentence is 14 years upwards. In that case, the Court of Appeal agreed with an argument that there should be a sequence of penalties related to a graduated rising scale until the quantity was so large that a mathematical progression was inappropriate and it should be left to the discretion of the sentencer. The quantity where a mathematical progression becomes inappropriate is over 1 kilogram.
Miss Lai, for reasons she has developed in mitigation before me this morning, asks me to adopt a lenient starting point. She says you are someone who has been led astray by your peers but are not intrinsically a bad girl. You are aware of the evils of the trade in which you have involved yourself and the grief which it has brought to your mother and sisters, all of whom have written poignant letters to this court on your behalf.
You are said to be remorseful for what you have done and are determined to put your life back on the rails. I sincerely hope you do that because it is clear to me you have the capacity to do it if you want to. The letter which you have written to the court yourself not only evidences your awareness of your and your family's predicament, as well as confirming your sense of remorse, but it is written in extremely good English which suggests to me that you have the capacity to significantly improve yourself.
The fact that you have taken the 2010 Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination whilst in prison, as well as enrolled on an accountancy course with the Open University, tells me that your intentions are genuine and that you have the capability of turning yourself into a good and productive citizen.
There is limited room for manoeuvre for a sentencing judge faced with someone like you charged with trafficking in very large quantities of dangerous drugs. However, I am prepared to accede to your counsel's plea in mitigation and adopt a starting point which is as low as I can within the guidelines in Hii Siew Cheng.
Whilst I would have been equally justified in adopting a slightly higher starting point in your case, the starting point that I do adopt, after trial, in respect of Count 1 is 14 years' imprisonment, and in respect of Count 3, 3 years’ imprisonment. I give you a one-third discount from those starting points which brings the sentence on Count 1 to 9 years and 4 months' imprisonment and, on Count 3, to 2 years' imprisonment.
I also agree with your counsel that the quantity on Count 3 would not make any significant difference to the overall sentence had the quantities been combined. Accordingly, I intend to make the sentences wholly concurrent.
I have to say I have been impressed by the efforts you have made whilst in prison for eight months to better yourself and to recognise the seriousness of these offences and your involvement in them. Whilst you are not of good character, your previous conviction is spent.
I will trim the sentence, but only very slightly, to 9 years and 3 months' imprisonment on Count 1, with the sentence on Count 2 of 2 years' imprisonment being made wholly concurrent. The overall sentence of the court is that you will go to prison for 9 years and 3 months and that is my sentence.