HKSAR v. LAM HON-SUN HANSON

DCCC 203/2017

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 203 OF 2017

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  The defendant pleaded guilty to three charges today. The first two charges involve offences of trafficking in a dangerous drug, and the 3rd charge is doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.

2.  The first two charges are separated in time, and the 1st charge of trafficking occurred on 14 November 2016 in Shanghai Street, and that was an occasion where the defendant was intercepted whilst walking in Shanghai Street in Mong Kok, and drugs were recovered from his person.  Those are the drugs particularised in Charge 1, and that is 5.6 grammes of ketamine and 1.8 grammes of cocaine.  The drugs were found in transparent resealable plastic bags.  Those drugs are valued at about $7,000‑odd.

3.  The defendant immediately admitted the drugs belonged to him.  Later, he admitted he had bought them in Sham Shui Po for about $4,000.

4.  The 2nd charge relates to drugs found on 3 January 2017 at what was the defendant’s home.  The 3rd charge also relates to the same occasion.  Police entered the defendant’s home that morning.  There was some obstruction of their entry into the room, and during the course of the police entry to the premises, the defendant appeared to try to flush some items, which were drugs, down the toilet.  Those items were recovered, and there were in fact 28 transparent resealable plastic bags found in the toilet bowl.

5.  There was a search of the premises conducted. Various what were then suspected dangerous drugs were found, together with a large number of empty transparent resealable plastic bags and an electronic scale.

6.  At the time, the defendant said all the drugs belonged to him.

7.  The drugs that were found in the premises were later found to contain 6.77 grammes of cocaine and 1.27 grammes of ketamine.

8.  The total value of the drugs found on that occasion is $12,018.

9.  The defendant admits today that all the drugs found in Charges 1 and 2 were for the purposes of unlawful trafficking.

10.  As far as the defendant’s background is concerned, he is 33 years old.  He is married, and I know from mitigation today that he has a son, aged 2 years old, and a daughter, who was born recently.  The children are with the mother and, I presume, cared for by her. 

11.  He was unemployed at the time of the offence, but he had been working as a lorry driver up to 2014, and this can be seen from the criminal record.

12.  The defendant has a history of use of drugs and convictions for possession of dangerous drugs from about 2001 onwards.  He has been fined and sentenced to both suspended sentences of imprisonment and also immediate sentences of imprisonment for this.  In 2014 he was working as a lorry driver and was found at that time driving a motor vehicle with a concentration of drug in his body, and as a result of this conviction, was sentenced to a drug addiction treatment centre.  He was also disqualified from driving, so he has not worked as a driver since then.

13.  That deals with the defendant’s background.

14.  As far as mitigation is concerned, he prays in aid his plea of guilty, that he has no convictions for trafficking before, that the drugs that the court is concerned with are actually one lot of drugs, and on 14 November he was taking part of that drug at his premises; and so the court should address Charges 1 and 2 in respect of an overall totality for that sentence for that quantity of drug.

15.  As far as Charge 3 is concerned, it is said the defendant just reacted to the visit of the police entering the premises.  It was a spontaneous and ill‑advised act, but in any event, the drugs were recovered, and he was just reacting to being told to flush the items down the toilet.  He is remorseful, and his family supports him still.

16.  As far as the sentence is concerned, for trafficking in drugs such as ketamine and cocaine, the sentences are determined by way of guideline sentences, and the starting points will be determined by the amount of narcotic content of the drug found on a particular occasion.

17.  In this case, in both Charges 1 and 2 there is what could be described as a cocktail of the drugs.  I believe nowadays the court normally approaches this in what is described as the combined approach, where the total quantity of drugs will be converted into the quantity of either the most serious or the most prevalent of the drugs.

18.  Taking that approach to these charges, on the 1st charge there is 1.8 grammes of cocaine.  The guideline sentence is the same as in heroin, and that is the case of R v Lau Tak Ming, and in this case, it would be the tariff range of up to 10 grammes, which is 2 to 5 years’ imprisonment, and would in fact be at the entry point of 2 years.

19.  As far as the ketamine is concerned, there are 5.6 grammes of ketamine in the 1st charge, which falls in the range of 1 to 10 grammes of ketamine, or 2 to 4 years’ imprisonment.

20.  The total quantity of drug then, or narcotic, is 7.04 grammes.  If that is converted to the most prevalent drug, ketamine, that would be a sentence in the region of 3½ years, or 42 months’ imprisonment.

21.  Taking that as the starting point, 42 months, the defendant is entitled to a one-third discount, which leads to a final sentence on Charge 1 of 28 months’ imprisonment.

22.  Dealing with the 2nd charge, in this case in the 2nd charge, the quantity of cocaine is 6.77 grammes; again, still within the range of 2 to 5 years’ imprisonment, but a larger quantity involved.  It would be in the region of 3½ years’ imprisonment.

23.  The quantity of ketamine is 1.27 grammes, which is within the range of 1 to 10 or 2 to 4 years’ imprisonment and would lead to a sentence of around 2 years’ imprisonment.

24.  Again, the total quantity of drugs in the 2nd charge is 8.04 grammes.  That still is a starting point on the tariff of 4 years’ imprisonment.

25.  After deduction of one-third, that leads to a sentence on the 2nd charge of 32 months’ imprisonment.

26.  As far as the 3rd charge is concerned, what I will do is take a starting point of 9 months’ imprisonment and reduce that to 6 months’ imprisonment.  My basis for that is there is no tariff for this offence, but it is still a substantial quantity of drugs that was attempted to be destroyed in a rather amateurish way.

27.  As far as the first two charges are concerned, the defence asks me to look at them in an overall totality.  The offences were, of course, committed on separate occasions, so the sentences could be served consecutively.  But the defence says these are one batch of drugs and there should be an overall sentence for them based on the correct totality.

28.  I consider that is a fair and sensible approach.  I consider the overall starting point for that quantity of drugs would be in the region of 60 months’ imprisonment, and to achieve that total means that a certain part of the 2nd charge will have to be served consecutively to the 1st.  I will achieve that by ordering that 12 months of the 2nd charge be served consecutively to the 1st charge. 

29.  That gives an overall total of 40 months’ imprisonment for those two charges.

30.  As far as the 3rd charge is concerned, I do not believe now that it adds a great deal more in terms of criminality to the overall enterprise I am dealing with here.

31.  What I shall order then is simply that 2 months of the 3rd charge be served consecutively to the 1st and 2nd charges.

32.  This gives an overall sentence of 42 months’ imprisonment.