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HCCC322/2009
IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 322 OF 2009
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| Before: |
The Honourable Mr Justice Line |
| Date: |
10 December 2009 at 9.47 am |
| Present: |
Mr P J Power, Senior Public Prosecutor of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR
Mr Nicholas Edward Weldon Adams, instructed by Anthony Kwan & Co, assigned by the Director of Legal Aid, for the Accused |
| Offence: |
Trafficking in a dangerous drug (販運危險藥物) |
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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case
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COURT: I have to sentence you for trafficking in dangerous drugs. The drug was ketamine.
You were caught leaving your home with 187 grammes of it on you. A search of your home revealed a further 118 grammes of the drug there.
You will have been told that these courts pass sentences based on guidelines which are, in turn, based on the nature of the drug and the quantity of it.
The total amount of drugs that you trafficked in on this occasion was 305 grammes. There is a category, Category 5 under the guideline case, of 300 to 600 grammes yielding a 9 to 12-year sentence of imprisonment after trial as a starting point.
You will also have been told that you earn a one-third discount by reason of your plea of guilty. That one-third discount is the same for the man who indicates his plea in the Magistracy or waits until the whole case has been prepared, the jurors are here, and pleads guilty at the court door. However, the indication of the early plea, going hand in hand, as it does, with your frankness to the police, your lack of previous convictions, and your young age of 20, reveal an attitude towards the crime and put it in a context generally that allows some flexibility in where to put you within any particular bracket.
The exercise is not just one of straightforward mechanics or mathematics. The mechanical approach overall yields a starting point of 9 years, but I want to give you the benefit of that small adjustment for the reasons that your counsel has urged upon me, and I judge that the fair way to achieve that is passing sentence on these two counts individually and then working out what the proper total should be.
Accordingly, on Count 1, involving 187 grammes of ketamine, I shall take a starting point of 7½ years and pass a sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment.
On Count 2, for the 118 grammes of ketamine, I shall take a starting point of 6½ years. I shall round that down after the one-third to a sentence of 4 years’ imprisonment.
I judge that the right total is one of 5½ years for this total amount of drugs. Accordingly, I shall order that the sentence on Count 2 commences after the expiry of the first 18 months of the sentence on Count 1. In other words, I overlap, to produce the sentence of 5½ years.
That sentence honours the guidelines, and you could have hoped for nothing less.
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