CRIMINAL CASE NO. 399 OF 2011
COURT: Lai Ying-hang, you have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates Court to two charges of trafficking in dangerous drugs and one charge of possession of arms, namely a stun-gun, without a licence.
The circumstances of these offences are that you were intercepted by the police after you came out of the door of a flat on the 1st floor of a building in Cheung Chau in the late afternoon of 4 March, this year. You were carrying a paper bag which was found to contain five plastic bags containing the drugs referred to in the 1st charge, 190.33 grammes of a powder containing 127.83 grammes of ketamine.
The police were in possession of a search warrant and so they went on to search the flat out of which you had come. In a plastic cabinet in the living room, they found 63 plastic bags which contained the drugs referred to in the 2nd charge, namely 1,838.85 grammes of a powder containing 1,332.46 grammes of ketamine.
In the same cabinet, the police found bundles of empty resealable bags and five paper boxes containing a total of 694 paracetamol tablets. In the same room, other drug trafficking paraphernalia were found, including five cartons of resealable plastic bags, a blender and a sieve, both containing traces of ketamine, as well as an electric scale.
On the floor of the kitchen, the police found a bag which contained, amongst other things, the stun-gun to which the 3rd charge relates. This was a particularly powerful stun-gun, capable, when fully charged, of discharging 119.22 kilowatts if applied to the equivalent of a human body. You admitted to the police that the ketamine and the stun-gun belonged to you.
The estimated street value of the drugs seized from you that day was just under $230,000. This was a large quantity of ketamine. The drug packaging paraphernalia indicates that these premises were being used by you for the storage and packaging of ketamine prior to its distribution.
An aggravating circumstance is the fact that this is not the first time that you have been convicted of trafficking in dangerous drugs. You were convicted of the same offence in 2008 and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.
Bearing that in mind, I am satisfied that while a starting point of 7 years’ imprisonment is appropriate for the drugs in Charge 1 and a starting point of 15 years is appropriate for the drugs in Count 2, an overall starting point of 16 years’ imprisonment for both trafficking offences is appropriate.
Insofar as the 3rd charge of possessing a stun-gun is concerned, I bear in mind that there is no evidence that it had been used, nor any evidence before me that you were about to use it. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the power of this weapon, I am satisfied a starting point of 2½ years’ imprisonment is appropriate.
The only real mitigation in this case are your pleas of guilty at the first opportunity, for which you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.
The sentences I pass on each offence are as follows: Charge 1, 4 years 8 months’ imprisonment; Charge 2, 10 years’ imprisonment; and Charge 3, 20 months’ imprisonment. Taking into account the appropriate totality of sentence, I order that 8 months of the sentence on Count 1 shall run consecutively to the sentence on Count 2 and that 6 months of the sentence on Count 3 shall run consecutively to the sentences on Counts 1 and 2.
This means that the total term of imprisonment imposed on you by this court today is 11 years and 2 months.