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DCCC 864/2012
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
CRIMINAL CASE NO 864 OF 2012
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| Date: |
1 February 2013 at 2.42 pm |
| Present: |
Ms Chan Sze-yan, PP, of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR |
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Mr Keith Oderberg, instructed by Paul Kwong & Co, for the defendant |
| Offence: |
Possession of a dangerous drug (管有危險藥物) |
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Reasons for Sentence
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1. The defendant has pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of 21.79 grammes of heroin hydrochloride.
2. The facts admitted by the defendant are that on 26 June, a team of police officers of the Regional Special Duty Squad on Hong Kong Island mounted an anti-narcotics operation in Yau Ma Tei on Canton Road.
3. At 6.50 pm the officers noticed the defendant walking from Ning Po Street to Canton road at a fast pace and always looking back. Because of his suspicious behaviour, the defendant was intercepted and searched and the drugs, the subject of the charge, were found in his underpants. And the defendant was arrested and said that the drugs were for his own consumption.
4. He said he bought the drugs earlier that day in Temple Street for $14,000. He said that he had been a heroin abuser for about 20 years and worked as a jewellery designer earning some $20,000 per month.
5. The street value of the drugs was just in excess of $20,500.
6. The defendant has two previous court appearances, in 1997 for possession of dangerous drugs, he was fined $1,200; in 2003 for theft, he was fined $1,000.
7. I am told that the defendant is now aged 44. He left school after Form 3 and has worked for a number of years as a jade designer and he is very successful in that business. He was married and from that union has a 19-year-old daughter who is at university and a 10-year-old son. He and his wife are now divorced, they were divorced in November 2012 and apparently at the time of the divorce the wife was not seeking custody of the son. However, I am now told that the wife is intending to look after the son until some time after the defendant has been released from prison, then she will monitor the situation before he is allowed custody of the son.
8. I know that the defendant has been in custody since his arrest in this matter which was some 7 months ago. As I am required to do by law, I adjourned the case on the previous occasion so that I could obtain a drug addiction treatment centre report. That report states that the defendant is no longer drug dependent, which is hardly surprising, given that he has been in custody for 7 months.
9. According to the report prepared by the Commissioner of Correctional Services, the defendant has been a drug abuser since 1984. From what he had told them, he said that prior to his present remand, he used to take drugs daily, costing him five to six hundred dollars on each occasion.
10. The report says that in the past he has had methadone treatment but went back to abusing drugs thereafter.
11. The normal sentence passed for persons convicted of possession of this quantity of drugs would be in the region of 18 months’ imprisonment. In addition to which, there would be an extra sentence of 6 months to reflect the factor of latent risk of the drugs coming into the hands of other abusers.
12. The defendant was in possession of a considerable quantity of drugs, 21.79 grammes. What I propose to do, given the features that have been urged upon me in mitigation and the contents of the report, is to take a starting point of 15 months’ imprisonment for this offence and add 6 for the latent risk factor, making a total of 21 months’ imprisonment.
13. The defendant is entitled to that sentence being reduced by one-third to reflect his guilty plea. He will therefore go to prison for 14 months.
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