HKSAR v. POON CHUN WAI

DCCC1164/2010

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 1164 OF 2010

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to two charges before this court.

2.  The 1st charge concerns trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, and the 2nd charge relates to possession of a dangerous drug, contrary to section 8(1)(a) and (2) of the same ordinance.  Both offences were committed on the same date, that is, 4 September 2010.

3.  The drugs for the trafficking offence were found inside a vehicle which you were found to have got onto the driver’s seat at Ground Floor, Hong Fu House, Cheung Hong Estate, Tsing Yi.

4.  The drugs for Charge 2 were found in your underpants at the Tsing Yi Police Station upon search.

5.  On the day in question, police officers were on anti-crime patrol at Cheung Hong Estate.  They saw you acting furtively.  A police officer, therefore, approached you but you got on to the driver’s seat of the vehicle.  He then approached you and asked you to alight.  They searched you.

6.  Upon search, they found a transparent plastic bag containing 10 small transparent plastic bags from your inside right trousers’ pocket which contained 14.92 grammes of a powder and 11.84 grammes of ketamine.

7.  A further search was conducted on the car, and another transparent bag, this time containing eight transparent plastic bags, was found to contain a total of 20.09 grammes of a powder containing 15.81 grammes of ketamine, and a further 198 transparent bags were also found.

8.  You admitted, under verbal caution, that you had intended to sell the drugs found in your trousers’ pocket and in the glove compartment.  You had at that time, on interception, been waiting for a friend, intending to sell the drugs from your pocket.

9.  When you were taken to the police station, a search was conducted upon you and that was when the further bag of drugs containing 2.53 grammes of a solid and 2 grammes of ketamine were found in your underpants.  You admitted that those drugs were for your own consumption.

10.  You had told the police in the record of interview that you had purchased the drugs the day before at Tsim Sha Tsui for a price of $2,000.

11.  The estimated retail value of the drugs found was $4,500.

12.  Your counsel, Miss Wong Bing-yee, has made full and thorough mitigation on your behalf, and I have taken into account all that she has had to say.

13.  You are aged 23 and have three previous convictions, one similar for possession of dangerous drugs, to which you were sentenced to DATC in 2004.

14.  You are a construction site worker and earn between $10,000 and $16,000 a month.  You live with your family, that is your mother and father, and your elder siblings live apart.

15.  I have read and noted the contents of two letters written, one by your mother and one by your employer.  They both speak well of you.  I am informed this offence was committed because you wanted to raise some money for your mother’s cataract operations, as if she had to do them in a public hospital she would have to wait a few years, whilst if she did it privately, she would be able to do them sooner rather than later.

16.  From the letter written by your employer, you had a few days before the commission of the present offence, asked to borrow $50,000; he gave you $20,000.  Your employer seems to regret that he did not lend you the whole amount as a result of his financial inability, and says that you may have committed this offence because you were unable to get the whole amount.

17.  That is very humble of your employer, but does not quite reflect well on yourself.  Despite receiving $20,000 out of the blue, you still went on to commit this trafficking offence, which although I know you might think you needed more, it was a very greedy thing to do.

18.  You are aware that if you traffic in dangerous drugs, that amounts to a very substantial lengthy term of imprisonment and that is a very serious crime.

19.  At a young age that you are, your employer tells me that your daily wage increased from $300 to $850 a day.  That is a considerable amount of money.  To earn that amount of money at your age is very good.

20.  The problem is, with youngsters like yourself, quick, easy money is what you are looking for.  You now know that quick, easy money is an indication or likelihood an offence being committed.

21.  Defendant, as your counsel rightly submitted, there are guidelines by the Court of Appeal laid down in the case of Secretary for Justice v Hii Siew Cheng, CACC7/2006 and 126/2007.

22.  You had trafficked in 27.65 grammes of ketamine. That falls within the third bracket of between 10 to 50 grammes, where a starting point is between 4 to 6 years’ imprisonment.  Taking into account the amount of drugs involved, an appropriate starting point after trial for the amount of ketamine involved would have been 4 years and 10 months’ imprisonment.

23.  However, giving you full credit for your plea of guilty, I shall reduce that term by one-third and reduce your term to one of 3 years 2 months’ imprisonment.  That is for the 1st charge, Charge 1.

24.  Charge 2 I would have imposed a sentence of 12 months after trial and reduced that term of 8 months on your plea.  That term shall be concurrent to the 1st charge, so that means a total of 3 years 2 months.