CRIMINAL CASE NO. 227 OF 2012
COURT: The defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in a dangerous drug. There were respectively 4.2 kilogrammes and 0.49 kilogrammes
of ketamine involved.
Shortly after 9 am on 23 November, year 2011, the defendant was intercepted by a team of police officers at the lobby of Block 2, Sherwood Court, Kingswood Villa, Tin Wu Road, Tin Shui Wai. Inside the black bag carried by the defendant, the police officers found 5 plastic bags containing the ketamine as set out in the 1st count.
The police then searched the defendant’s unit at Flat F, 1st Floor, of the same building. They found the ketamine mentioned in the 2nd count inside the defendant’s room. There were also some adulterant powder, 3 electronic scales, 2 of which with traces of ketamine, a plastic funnel and a ladle with traces of ketamine. A pile of transparent plastic bags were also found.
The defendant admitted that he picked up and delivered the ketamine for Siu Ming. He had done that in the past for three times. He was promised a reward of $5,000. On this occasion he had not received any reward yet. He retrieved the ketamine found on him from a nullah at Yuen Long Main Road before the arrest. He was on his way home to wait for further instruction from Siu Ming.
The police estimated that the retail value of the ketamine was about $610,000.
The defendant is 24 years old. He has two previous convictions. He received education up to Form 2. Before his arrest, he was a part-time worker earning about $10,000 a month. His parents separated shortly after he was born and he was taken care of by his grandparents. His father was busy at work and there was little supervision.
The defendant was convicted of importing unmanifested cargo in year 2007. He breached the Community Service Order and was sentenced to training centre. After his release from training centre in year 2011, he was lured by Siu Ming to earn some quick money. He also wanted to support his grandma who needed constant medical care. He thus committed the present offences.
He was not a drug addict though he had abused cocaine before. He stressed that he had not used the paraphernalia to pack the drug.
In his letter to this court, the defendant’s father was very regretful for not caring for his son in the past. He pointed out that the defendant was reliable at work.
The total amount of ketamine is 4.69 kilogrammes. The sentence for trafficking this quantity exceeds the tariff set out in Secretary for Justice v Hii Siew Cheng ([2009] 1 HKLRD 1). In that case, for trafficking over 1 kilogramme of ketamine, the starting point should be over 14 years’ imprisonment.
For trafficking in large quantities of ketamine, I have considered HKSAR v Leung Wai Man, CACC24/2007. In that case the Court of Appeal held that a starting point of 27 years would be appropriate for trafficking 167 kilogrammes of ketamine. The Court of Appeal stressed that a sentencing court should exercise its discretion according to the circumstances of each case.
I am grateful to both counsel for drawing my attention to a number of sentencing cases from the Court of Appeal and the Court of First Instance. While there is no tariff for trafficking in this amount of ketamine, the range of imprisonment terms for trafficking 2 to 5 kilogrammes is 16 to 20 years subject to aggravating factors.
Having considered the circumstances of this case, I take a starting point of 16 years’ imprisonment for the 1st count. I deduct 5 years and 4 months for his plea. I sentence the defendant to 10 years and 8 months’ imprisonment for the 1st count.
For the 2nd count, I take 10 years and 11 months as the starting point. I deduct 3 years and 8 months for his plea. I sentence him to 7 years and 3 months’ imprisonment.
Having considered the totality principle, I order 6 months of the sentence for the 2nd count to run consecutive to the 1st count. The defendant has to serve a total of 11 years and 2 months’ imprisonment.