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DCCC295/2010
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONGSPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 295 OF 2010
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Before:
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H H Judge Longley
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Date:
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17 August 2010 at 10.58 am
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Present:
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Mr John Marray, Counsel on Fiat, for HKSAR
Mr Oliver Davies, instructed by Wong & Co., assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Defendant
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Offence:
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Trafficking in a dangerous drug (販運危險藥物)
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. Ng Siu-lun, you have been convicted on your own plea of trafficking in 135.0 grammes of a powder containing a 115.47 grammes of ketamine.
2. You were approached by the police after you got into the driver’s seat of a car in Fa Yuen Street on the evening of 20 January this year. Police officers searched you and found the drugs that are the subject matter of this charge in the front pocket of the vest you were wearing. The drugs were in ten plastic bags. The street value of the drugs was approximately $15,000. It was therefore a significant quantity of drugs.
3. You admitted to the police that those drugs were to be supplied to customers, and you claimed that you were involved in trafficking in those drugs in order to feed your own addiction.
4. You have a long history of involvement with dangerous drugs, including a previous conviction in 2005 for trafficking. You would have been very well aware that if you were caught in trafficking in dangerous drugs very serious consequences would follow. Clearly, you decided to take that risk in return for the rewards that trafficking would bring you. As Mr Davies, your counsel, has told you, the normal starting point for those who traffic in between 50 and 300 grammes of ketamine is a starting point of between 6 and 9 years' imprisonment, unless there are exceptional circumstances. There are no exceptional circumstances in your case.
5. Bearing in mind that some of those drugs may have been for your own consumption, I am prepared to adopt a starting point at the lower end of that tariff band, namely 6 years' imprisonment. It is no mitigation whatsoever that you trafficked in those drugs in order to feed your own addiction. You cannot claim in mitigation that you are a man of previous good character. The only real mitigation in your case is your plea of guilty to this charge. For that you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.
6. I accordingly sentence you to 4 years' imprisonment.
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P.K.M. Longley |
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District Court Judge |
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