COURT: I have to sentence you for trafficking in a dangerous drug. The drug was heroin, and you were caught with 420 grammes of it at our airport. You had some of the drugs in your underwear and some had been concealed inside your body.
You will have been told that sentencing for drug trafficking in Hong Kong is based upon guidelines, and the guidelines are based on the nature and weight of the drug.
You fall in the bracket that runs from 400 grammes to 600 grammes, attracting a starting point after trial of 15 to 20 years’ imprisonment.
It is also the case that the starting point is raised because of the aggravation that flows from there being an international element in the case. The guideline speaks of 2 years’ enhancement to the starting point for amounts in excess of 1 kilogram. The judges here, in my experience, for amounts in excess of 500 grammes to 1,000 grammes, enhance by 1 year, but it is not particularly clear what happens with amounts below 500 grammes. My practice is to enhance by 6 months.
Fixing the initial starting point is not just a question simply of mathematics. Your role in the matter and the sort of person you were and how you came to be involved in it is given some, if not great, weight. Your counsel has set out in a competent mitigation, which I have in writing, those matters which led her to make this submission, which I will accept, that your life was hard back in Tanzania. I know your husband died, you supported an ill father, you had young children. Without being offensive, it is clear that you are not a sophisticated person, and I will accept how you were dazzled by the promise of US$5,000 that would have cured all the things that made your life hard.
You will have been waiting outside this court with another lady from Tanzania this morning. Her case is very similar to yours, save that she carried 330 grammes. She fell in the middle of her bracket, but because of her role as a courier, I put her at the bottom of that bracket. By weight, you start at the bottom end of your bracket, so without doing any violence to the guidelines, what I must do is therefore drop you down into the bracket below.
I intend to take a starting point, by reason of your role and background and the general circumstances of the case, of 13½ years. I will add the 6-month aggravation for the international element, which gives a total starting point of 14 years.
You earn a one-third discount because of your plea of guilty. That results in a sentence of 9 years and 4 months.
I know your family will not be able to visit you. I know that will seem like a very long time to you, but please believe me, given our sentencing system here, that is the least sentence you could have hoped for realistically.