CRIMINAL CASE NO. 129 OF 2011
COURT: I have to sentence you on your pleas of guilty entered in the Magistrates' Court for trafficking in a dangerous drug. The drug in question was cocaine and you were caught bringing it into Hong Kong through the International Airport, 331.6 grammes of it. It had an estimated retail value of HK$391,000.
I do not doubt for a minute what your counsel says that when you set out to do this you did not know what the sentences were in Hong Kong and they are stiff ones. You will have been told that there are guidelines, which are based on the quantity of the drug and the nature of it. The guideline in your case runs from 200 grammes to 400 grammes, attracting a starting point, after trial, of 12 to 15 years’ imprisonment. You earn a one-third discount for your plea of guilty and I shall intend to give you that.
So you are roughly, by mathematics, in the middle of the bracket. What will keep you there and push the sentence up is the aggravating feature that this case has an international element because you were bringing dangerous drugs across an international border. They came from Argentina into Hong Kong.
Having said that, though, the mitigation advanced by your counsel has been effective. I have absolutely no doubt that you were exploited. I have no reason to doubt the fact that you did this for as little as US$1,000, but what really moves me to move you down within the bracket as far as I can, consistent with my public duty, is the fact that I read, and it is confirmed by the medical officer at the Tai Lam Centre where you are currently detained, that you are HIV positive. I am told that you have a five-year-old son and that the quality of health care you would achieve in South Africa would be much the better if you could afford private medicine and that is why you went after the $1,000. I can see exactly why the temptation was there for you to do that.
You will appreciate that we try and achieve consistency as much as we can, because if we are soft on people in your position then those cynical men who recruit people like you will just continue to recruit people like you, so we cannot let your personal considerations have too much weight. In other words, I cannot take you out of the bracket that the guidelines put you in but what I can do, to recognise the mitigation that has been advanced, is put you towards the bottom of it and that is something I intend to do.
You were frank with the authorities. You made the admissions that you were carrying dangerous drugs and the like. You have not spent your credibility trying to lie your way out of trouble in a trial. In other words, other than the fact that you committed the crime and the fact that it involved an international element, everything else is in your favour when it comes to considering a plea of guilty and the sentence upon it.
I have to do my public duty and that requires me not to put you right at the bottom of the bracket. I shall start at 12.5, or 12½ years, which, after the deduction for your plea of guilty, gives a sentence of 8 years and 4 months. That is the least sentence I feel I can pass based on the facts of your case and that is the sentence I do pass upon you. I have given as much weight as I can to the attractive mitigation that I heard from Mr Stirling. I could not have given it any more, in my view. So the sentence is one of 8 years and 4 months.