CRIMINAL CASE NO. 437 OF 2011
COURT: I have to sentence you for trafficking in dangerous drugs. You will know that we follow guidelines here when it comes to sentencing in cases like yours.
You were stopped having left your premises carrying a small amount of ketamine, which is the subject of Count 1 and search of your premises revealed ketamine, methamphetamine and some tablets containing nimetazepam.
You will know the guidelines are based on the nature of the drug and the quantity of them. You had 770 grammes of ketamine in your flat. You were carrying 2.13 grammes of it on your person. Also in the flat was found 4.35 grammes of methamphetamine.
Ketamine is the most significant drug by amount in your case. For 772 grammes of ketamine you fall into the bracket of 600 to 1,000 grammes, attracting a starting point after trial of 12 to 14 years’ imprisonment.
This is not just a mathematical exercise. Looking at all of the circumstances, which includes your record and your way of life, I determine that a starting point of 13 years would be correct for the ketamine if it stood alone. Your pleas of guilty earn you the one-third discount so if the ketamine had stood alone that would result in a sentence of 8 years and 8 months.
However, you were also trafficking in a significant quantity of “Ice”. The 4.35 grammes of that drug puts you in the category for trafficking that goes from zero up to 10 grammes attracting a starting point after trial of 3 to 7 years’ imprisonment.
I would take a starting point if it stood alone of 5 years in your case and reduce that by reason of the plea to one of 3 years and 4 months. So the question is how I should relate those two sentences to each other to arrive at the correct total for the drugs in Count 2.
What I judge to be just is this, is that I shall notionally take 1 year and 4 months of the methamphetamine sentence and add that to the ketamine sentence and after the pleas of guilty that would give a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.
As regards the amount of ketamine in Count 1, I have already taken that into account in the global amount of ketamine involved therefore I shall pass a concurrent sentence. I shall set that as being one of 16 months’ imprisonment.
The total is therefore 10 years.
I will add this, that I have not increased the sentences in any significant way by reason of your record. The sad fact is there is every indication that you lived your life by crime. You were only 16 when you were convicted of trafficking in dangerous drugs and went to training centre. At the age of 20 you were in the High Court being convicted of robbery and at the age of 24 you were back in the High Court again convicted of robbery.
Then at the age of 28, in April of last year, you were committing these crimes, having only been released from that last robbery sentence for some 14 or 15 months. So I want
you to know it is not just the mathematics in the application of guidelines that result in a sentence of 10 years being what I judge to be the correct one for you.