CRIMINAL CASE NO. 196 OF 2011
COURT: Ng Chin-man, you have pleaded guilty to two charges of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely ketamine. Your plea was entered in the Magistrates’ Court and you have been committed to this court for sentence.
The 1st charge relates to 39.38 grammes of a powder containing 27.43 grammes of ketamine. Those drugs were in eight small transparent plastic bags in the pocket of the jeans you were wearing when the taxi in which you were travelling was stopped outside Amoy Plaza in Ngau Tau Kok shortly before 10 pm on 3 January this year.
You claimed that you were delivering the drugs for somebody called “Ah Wong” in return for a reward of $300. You said that you had initially asked him for a loan of money, but he had refused, and suggested that you earn some quick money by delivering the drugs for him. At first you claimed that you had picked up the eight packets of drugs from “Ah Wong” earlier that evening at Hoi Lai Estate. However, after the police searched your home in the early hours of the morning and found further drugs there, you changed your story. Under the bed in your bedroom the police found the drugs that are the subject of the 2nd charge: 820 grammes of a powder containing 560 grammes of ketamine. They were in two plastic bags together with three plastic spoons, 165 small resealable plastic bags, and an electronic scale.
After those drugs had been discovered, you said that you would tell the police the truth. You claimed that this person, “Ah Wong”, had given you these two bags of drugs to store at your home earlier that evening, on the basis that he would later give you instructions to make deliveries on his behalf. You said that the eight packets of drugs that had been found in your jeans pocket had been packaged by you from the drugs that had been given to you by “Ah Wong”.
These are very serious offences indeed. Some idea of the quantity of these drugs can be gained from their retail value if they had been sold on the streets of Hong Kong. The value has been estimated to be over $97,000.
I bear in mind that at the time of these offences you were a young man of 17 with no previous convictions. In normal circumstances, the courts are very reluctant to sentence young persons to long terms of imprisonment, but with offences as serious as those of trafficking in dangerous drugs, the courts are left with no alternative. Even at your age you would have been well aware of the gravity of what you were doing, and that very serious consequences would follow if you were caught.
As I am sure Ms Wong will have told you, the normal starting point for those who traffic in between 10 and 50 grammes of ketamine is between 4 and 6 years’ imprisonment. The normal starting point for those who traffic in between 300 and 600 grammes of ketamine is between 9 and 12 years’ imprisonment.
I have read the letter that you have sent to the court. I have also considered the very extensive written submissions that Ms Wong, on your behalf, has submitted to the court. In those submissions she has said everything that could be possibly said on your behalf. Even if you did intend to use part of the drugs that you had been given by “Ah Wong” for your own consumption, the amount that you would have consumed would have been insignificant bearing in mind the quantity of drugs involved.
If it was not for your age and previous good character, I would have regarded the appropriate starting point on the 1st charge as being 4½ years’ imprisonment, and on the 2nd charge, 11 years’ imprisonment. I would have regarded the appropriate overall starting point on both charges as being 11 years’ imprisonment.
In view of your young age and your previous good character, I am prepared to adopt starting points of 4 years’ imprisonment in respect of the 1st charge and 10 years in respect of the 2nd charge, with an overall starting point of 10 years.
A matter of considerable mitigation in this case is the remorse that you have expressed in the letter that you have submitted to the court and shown by your pleas of guilty at the earliest opportunity.
Taking that into account and the other special circumstances of mitigation that have been explained to me, I pass sentence as follows.
On Charge 1, I sentence you to 26 months’ imprisonment. That is 2 years 2 months.
On Charge 2, I sentence you to 5 years 6 months’ imprisonment.
Both sentences are to run concurrently, so the total sentence therefore that I pass is 5 years 6 months.