COURT: I have to sentence you for trafficking in dangerous drugs, for the possession of an identity card relating to another person and the possession of unlawfully obtained travel documents.
You will have been told that the sentence for drug trafficking depends upon guidelines and the guideline is based on the nature and quantity of the drug. The drug in your case was heroin and you were trafficking in just over 2 kilograms of it.
You went to Pakistan with the 1st defendant, described as your girlfriend, a woman younger than you from the mainland. When you returned to Hong Kong, you switched suitcases and the one you gave her to bring through the Customs was full of the heroin. It was hidden in a number of batteries in the suitcase.
The prosecution today have offered no evidence against what was the 1st defendant, your girlfriend. That is on you entering the pleas of guilty today. I gave her bail a week ago but between April 2012 and last week, she was in custody.
It was the fact that you were bailed. You should not have been but you were and you did your best to escape the jurisdiction and leave her alone here to face the music. You got to the border, concealed yourself in a suitcase and evaded the Hong Kong control. Once out of the suitcase, to the officials from the mainland, you presented what you had acquired unlawfully at Chungking Mansions, you say for $5,000, namely an identity card and two passports belonging to the same person.
You very nearly got away with it. But for the quick wits and suspicions of the border authorities on the mainland, you would not have been returned, as you were, to the Hong Kong side. But their relation of those facts revealed this to be a serious case. With your apparent advantages, choosing to involve yourself and organise this drug trafficking was serious. Exploiting someone else to do it to make it easier for you and reduce your risks was despicable.
Having said that, even though the evidence against you was overwhelming with the fingerprints, I do acknowledge that you pleaded guilty at a late stage in the day and that you have now spared her the ordeal of a trial. In those circumstances, I will give you the third discount, though I suspect that it would not have been open to criticism to reduce that discount by reason of the fact that you attempted to avoid these proceedings by fleeing the jurisdiction.
The guideline to which I have referred in your case runs from trafficking in 1,200 to 4,000 grammes, attracting a starting point after trial of 23 to 26 years’ imprisonment. To that has to be added, from the starting point taken in that bracket, a further extension to reflect the aggravation of bringing these drugs over international borders, and that will run for 2 years.
Choosing a place within that bracket is not entirely a question of mathematics. Bearing in mind the fact that you were not just a courier and bearing in mind how you exploited your former co-accused, I shall take a starting point in that bracket of 25 years.
That would, of itself, give a sentence, after the discount, of 16 years and 8 months. To that will have to be added a further 1 year and 4 months being the discounted 2 years’ aggravation. The total on Count 1 is 18 years’ imprisonment.
For the possession of the travel documents and identity card which were facilitating your escape from this jurisdiction in order to avoid your proper punishment, I shall take starting points in each case of 3 years’ imprisonment. The circumstances of their use make it a graver case than the standard sort of case which these courts normally see in the Magistrates Court.
I shall give you a one-third discount and, accordingly, the sentences on Counts 2 and 3 will be 2 years on each, concurrent to each other.
Even though I order them to run concurrently to each other, I shall overlap, bearing in mind totality, by 1 year the sentence on Count 1. The total, therefore, is 19 years’ imprisonment.