CRIMINAL CASE NO. 164 OF 2009
COURT: You have been committed to this court for sentence, having pleaded guilty in the court below to two charges, the first one being an offence of trafficking in 323.85 grammes of a powder containing 137.54 grammes of ketamine, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap. 134, Laws of Hong Kong; and secondly, possession of 13 Hong Kong identity cards relating to other persons, contrary to section 7A(1A) of the Registration of Persons Ordinance, Cap. 177, Laws of Hong Kong.
The facts, which you have admitted, giving rise to these offences are that you were intercepted by officers on anti‑dangerous drugs patrol as you were leaving your premises. You were taken back to the unit, where you were searched, and some 10.59 grammes of ketamine were found inside your left jeans pocket.
Upon a search of the safe inside the premises, officers found 11 bags of ketamine containing 126.95 grammes of that substance, some cash, and the 13 identity cards being the subject matter of Charge 2.
You told the police that some of the ketamine was for your own consumption and also for sale to others.
With regard to the 13 identity cards, you told the police that you found these in a documents envelope in a rubbish bin, and that you had intended to discard them, but were arrested by the police prior to doing so.
In sentencing you, I take into account all that has been said on your behalf, but the strongest mitigation in this case is your plea of guilty, which is an indication of your remorse, and I will give you full credit for that.
On the 1st charge, I adopt a starting point of 7 years’ imprisonment. I will discount this by one-third to reflect your plea of guilty, coming to 4 years and 8 months’ imprisonment on the 1st charge.
With regard to the 2nd charge, the circumstances of this offence I find to be highly unusual. Whilst the explanation that you gave to the police as to how you came by these identity cards seems, on the face of it, to be wholly unreal, there is nothing to suggest to the contrary, and Mr Melwaney, for the Department of Justice, has very fairly conceded that there is no evidence at all of you being involved in any illegal identity card syndicate.
However, the fact remains that any offence involving Hong Kong identity cards is a serious matter, and on Charge 2 I will adopt a starting point of 9 months’ imprisonment. This will similarly be discounted by one-third to reflect your plea of guilty, coming to 6 months’ imprisonment on the 2nd charge.
This is a completely distinct offence from the 1st charge, and as a consequence of that, I am ordering that the sentence of 6 months’ imprisonment is to run consecutively to the sentence that I have imposed on the 1st charge, arriving at an overall sentence of 5 years and 2 months’ imprisonment.