CRIMINAL CASE NO. 222 OF 2009
COURT: Ho Wing-to, I have given careful consideration to everything urged on your behalf.
The only things which might normally be regarded as mitigation are your youth and clear record. But, even though they may feel pity for the person to be sentenced and his family, the courts are well aware that giving discounts of sentence for such factors would only encourage persons in the drug trade to recruit young people of clear record to take part in this terrible business which often destroys persons even younger than you by turning them into drug addicts. It would make such recruitment easier. It would draw in more young people of clear record. So I am not going to fix a sentencing starting point and then discount it for your youth and clear record. But I will not wholly ignore these matters. Let me explain.
There are sentencing guidelines for drug trafficking cases. These guidelines are based on the type and quantity of narcotics involved. But since they are guidelines and not a straitjacket, there is some room within them to have regard to the reality of the whole of the circumstances. I will be as lenient as I feel that I can be without ignoring my duty to the public when passing sentence.
The Court of Appeal has identified two sentencing approaches when the dangerous drugs trafficked in are of more than one type. They are called the “individual approach” and the “combined approach”.In the case of HKSAR v Wong Kin-kau CACC269/2009 4 May 2010, Mr Justice Tang VP agreed that no matter which approach is taken, the paramount consideration at the end of the day is the totality of the overall starting point, but he added that he believed that it would often be the combined approach which is more likely to lead to the correct overall sentence.
Your counsel has urged me to adopt the combined approach. I do so. On the basis of everything which I have said and all things considered, I sentence you to 8 years’ imprisonment.
Leung Mei-yee, you have pleaded guilty to one count of being a tenant who permitted premises to be used for the unlawful storage of dangerous drugs. The drugs stored were 34.33 grammes of “Ice”, 46.92 grammes of ketamine and 7 milligrams of cannabis. The premises at which they were stored was the flat in which you lived with your two young sons and in which the person convicted after trial of trafficking in the drugs was then living on a temporary basis.
I have taken into consideration everything urged on your behalf. You have a previous conviction, but that was a long time ago, namely in 1995, and was for a different type of offence, namely theft. As emerged from the background report, your personal circumstances have always been and are very difficult and worthy of sympathy. There are various circumstances in which this offence can be committed, some more serious than others. Personal circumstances of the offender can shed some light on the circumstances of the offence on questions like whether the offence was committed in a calculating way or in a weak and stupid way. So I will bear your personal circumstances in mind, to your advantage, in assessing the circumstances of the offence. That is relevant to the sentencing starting point to be selected.
Of course persons who commit the offence of which you stand convicted on your own plea are acting in a way which assists those in the drug trade, which is a great evil that does terrible harm. So the offence to which you have pleaded guilty is a serious one even when not committed for payment.
All things considered, I adopt a sentencing starting point of 4 years. The only real mitigation available to you is your guilty plea. For that, you will receive a discount of one‑third.
I therefore sentence you to 2 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.