HKSAR v. CHEUNG CHOR SHING

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

1998, No.71
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Stuart-Moore, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. On 19th January 1998, the Applicant appeared before Wong J. and confirmed the pleas that he had entered at an earlier date before the Magistrate to trafficking in a mixture worth $1,445,000 approximately containing just over 1.7 kgs. of heroin hydrochloride. He was sentenced on this charge to 17 years' imprisonment. He had also pleaded guilty to possession of a small amount of heroin, for which he received a concurrent sentence of 12 months' imprisonment. He now seeks leave to appeal against his sentence.

2. The facts revealed that the Applicant worked as a heroin courier and possessed drugs of the same kind for personal consumption.

3. The judge took a starting point of 28 years' imprisonment. We consider this to have been too high having regard to the circumstances of the case. This case did not have an international element to it insofar as the Applicant was working as a courier only in Hong Kong. The Applicant, who was 19 years old at the time, had a criminal record comprised of 3 stale minor offences. We have had the benefit of looking at the case of HKSAR v Ng Sai-ho, Cr. App. 528 of 1997, and consider that this was a case similar in many ways to the present. In the absence of any good reason for having made the starting point so high, we cannot see why in the circumstances it should have been more than 24 years. The judge did, however, give the Applicant some small additional credit over and above the one-third discount that he received for his plea of guilty, and we shall do the same.

4. Having regard to all of the matters raised in this application, including those which have been ventilated in chambers, we consider that the sentence should be reduced from the fresh starting point to 16 years and further reduced to 14 years' imprisonment to take into account the mitigation.

5. Accordingly we shall give leave to appeal. Treating this hearing as the appeal, we reduce the sentence on the first charge to 14 years' imprisonment. The sentence on the second charge remains as before to be served concurrently. To this extent the appeal is allowed.