HKSAR v. KWAN KA YU

DCCC364/2009

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 364 OF 2009

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Reasons for Sentence

1.  Crime does not pay and your past has caught up with you now.  You absconded in January 1996 and was re-arrested 13 years later on 12 March 2009 when you returned from Australia.  There would be no reduction on sentence for the delay to bring you back to justice as you had absconded from bail.

2.  You are now 68.  You were 55 in 1996.  Again your age is not a mitigating factor.  Had you not absconded, you would have served your time when you were in your 50s.  So very unfortunately you now have to serve your term in your late 60s. 

3.  The only mitigating factor I could see here is your plea of guilty and for that I would give you a full one-third discount. 

4.  The guideline in Lau Tak Ming applies in this case.  Where the purity of drug is between 10 and 50 grammes, the term of imprisonment is between 5 to 8 years.  So in relation to Charge 1, we are dealing with 11.84 grammes of heroin hydrochloride.  I take a starter of 5½ years for this charge.   One-third discount for your plea, you are therefore sentenced to 44 months’ imprisonment.

5.  On the 2nd charge, I take a starter of 12 months imprisonment.  One-third discount, you are therefore sentenced to 8 months’ imprisonment.

6.  Both charges appeared to me to be part of a series of transactions in the sense that you were a drug addict at the time, you consumed drugs and you also sold drugs to others.  The total quantity of the drugs in relation to the two charges would add up to under 15 grammes.  For that quantity, I would still adopt 5½ years as a starter.  So for the sentences in Charges 1 and 2, I order the terms to be served concurrently.  In total, the term would be 44 months.