CRIMINAL CASE NO. 330 OF 2011
COURT: I have to sentence you for trafficking in a dangerous drug. The drug in question was heroin and you were caught carrying 93.73 grammes of it strapped to your body across the border at Lok Ma Chau.
It will have been explained to you that the sentencing for drug trafficking offences are based on guidelines which are in turn based on the nature and quantity of the drug.
You fall into the category that runs from 50 to 200 grammes, attracting a starting point of imprisonment after trial of 8 to 12 years’ imprisonment.
By weight alone the starting point would be something like 9 years and the modest increase on that for the international element involved in bringing it into Hong Kong.
Balanced against that I have heard a nice mitigation from your counsel and that informs me that you have had a sad life and if I mention the matter when you were 19 when someone committed suicide in your presence by jumping off a building. A history thereafter of mental illness, hospitalisation, a diagnosis of schizophrenia and various sad relationships.
One of the advantages of pleading guilty beyond the one-third discount which you will have, is that your mitigation is the more likely to be accepted, and I will act on the picture your counsel paints which includes your ongoing drug addiction.
In 2009 you gave birth to a baby boy. He is only two years old. Obviously the pain that is going to follow your separation from him by reason of the punishment you have to face for this crime will be significant.
I have been told about a recent diagnosis of a tumour you have in your liver and I understand that your father has lung cancer. It is a sorry picture.
It is also asserted on your behalf, and I will accept, that a small quantity of the drugs you were carrying would have been given to you for your own consumption.
You will appreciate that consistency in sentencing for drug cases is important, that is why we follow the guidelines, and it has to be something truly exceptional for the court to depart from the guidelines.
However, within the guidelines there is room for some small flexibility and I shall act on the mitigation that has been advanced. Accordingly I shall take a starting point of 8 years, at the bottom end of the bracket. You have the one-third discount for your plea of guilty. The sentence therefore is one of 5 years and 4 months.
In the circumstances that is designed to be as lenient a sentence as I can pass consistent with my public duty.