CRIMINAL CASE NO. 354 OF 2010
COURT: I have to sentence you in respect of three counts on this indictment, all of which involved the drug methamphetamine hydrochloride.
You are a 26-year old lady who has been addicted to “Ice” for some time. In April last year you were stopped, having left your home. You were carrying 0.52 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride. You were leaving home to go elsewhere, where you were going to take the drug for yourself. That is what you told the police and you have accordingly pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing that amount in count 1 of the indictment.
You were taken back to your home and further “Ice” was found there. There were two identifiable quantifies of it, one being 2.34 grammes, which is the subject of count 2 and the other being 25.58 grammes, which is the subject of count 3. You maintained to the police that the amount in count 2, the smaller amount, was for your own consumption and you said to them that the larger amount had been left by someone else in your premises. You denied trafficking in it.
Accordingly, you pleaded guilty on the 2nd count to possession, a plea which was accepted by the prosecution. So in respect of the first two counts, I have to deal with you for an amount of under 3 grammes of “Ice” for your own consumption.
This is not the first time you have been before the court for drugs. You have been to DATC.
I shall take a starting point of 15 months’ imprisonment, reduce that by one-third for the pleas of guilty and impose concurrent sentences of 10 months on counts 1 and 2.
What you explained to the police about the larger amount in your premises can be summarised in this way: that you had a boyfriend who was also a drug addict; you both took “Ice”; he was sent to DATC. You are not a woman who had your own job or your own work. He continued to look after you and he arranged for someone to supply you with “Ice”.
That is the person you said came to your flat and left the larger amount, and you described how that had been going on since November the year before - he coming to your premises, supplying you. Occasionally, you would take “Ice” there together. He would leave drugs there and sometimes he would divide the drugs up and repackage them there.
You told the police, and I am minded to accept, that you asked him not to but he continued nonetheless. And of course I take the point made by your counsel that to turn him in would have turned off your supply. That was all set out in an interview you gave to the police and accordingly you pleaded not guilty to trafficking in the larger amount and pleaded guilty to an alternative that was added to the indictment, of being a tenant permitting premises to be used for the storage of a dangerous drug.
The offence can be committed in a number of ways and the way it was particularised in the count to which you pleaded guilty was that you “suffered the storage” of the methamphetamine hydrochloride. I want to assure you that I will not go behind the pleas you tendered, which were accepted, and I will add, sensibly accepted. If you had done something actively to encourage any drug trafficking or storage there, then the right charge would have been count 3. I make it clear I deal with you on the basis that your counsel accepts and upon the basis which he mitigates.
If you had been guilty of trafficking in that amount of 25.58 grammes, a starting point of about 7½ years would have been appropriate, which would have been 5 years on a plea of guilty.
The offence of a tenant permitting premises to be used, contrary to section 37 of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, is an offence which can cover a wide range of culpability. There is no particular tariff or guideline and the facts will vary enormously. It is obviously serious to suffer the storage of dangerous drugs in premises. On the other hand, there are obvious features of mitigation that exist in the story I have summarised.
Your counsel made the rather attractive submission that this was about half as serious as if you had been trafficking in the ice and I think that to be a reasonable approach in the circumstances of this case. Accordingly, on count 4, I shall impose a sentence of half of what it would have been if it had been trafficking on a plea, and that is a sentence of 2 years and 6 months.
The last question I have to decide is how to relate the 10‑month sentences with that sentence of 2½ years. I shall overlap them modestly and I shall order that the sentence of 2½ years commences after six months of the sentences on Counts 1 and 2.
The total sentence is thus one of 3 years' imprisonment.