CRIMINAL CASE NO. 102 OF 2010
COURT: The defendant was committed to this court for sentence from Eastern Magistracy pursuant to section 81B of the Magistrates Ordinance. He has pleaded guilty to two offences of trafficking in large quantities of ketamine.
The facts of the offences are as follows. On 25 October last year, the defendant was seen by a team of Customs officers, on an operation in a street in Fanling, to be carrying a white cloth bag. He was intercepted, and found in the bag were 1.73 kilograms of ketamine, the 1st charged offence.
The defendant was then taken to his residence in a nearby estate, and in a wardrobe were found items containing 4.678 kilograms of the drug, the 2nd charged offence. Drug packaging paraphernalia was also found in the wardrobe.
So far as the 1st charged offence is concerned, I take a starting point of sentence of 16 years’ imprisonment. I take into account the defendant’s plea of guilty, and reduce that to a sentence of 10 years 8 months’ imprisonment.
So far as the 2nd charged offence is concerned, I take a starting point of 20 years’ imprisonment. In my view, again the only mitigation is the defendant’s plea of guilty, and I discount the starting point of sentence on that basis to a sentence of 13 years 4 months’ imprisonment.
I am satisfied that a proper totality of sentence, based on the whole amount of 6.408 grammes of ketamine and on a notional starting point of sentence, including any enhancement to reflect the international element of the offence, of 22 years’ imprisonment, after a reduction for the defendant’s pleas, should result in a total sentence of 14 years 8 months’ imprisonment.
To achieve that, I order that the sentences be served concurrently, except that 4 years of the sentence imposed on the 2nd charged offence be served consecutively to the sentence imposed on the 1st charged offence.