HKSAR v. Cheung Ting Kong

HCCC 53/2015

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 53 OF 2015

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT: Right, Mr Cheung, stand up, please.

The defendant is a young man of just 19 years of age. He was born and lives in Hong Kong. He was educated only to Primary 2 level and although unemployed at the time of his arrest and a student, or at least hoping to carry out a VTC course at that stage, had previously worked as a trainee in a hair salon and in a sushi restaurant.

He has a criminal record containing two matters which date back to 2011 when he was just 15 years old. These offences are wholly dissimilar in nature to the offence before the court and I have not taken them into consideration for the purpose of sentence today.

He now stands to be sentenced for one matter of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap. 134, in that he unlawfully trafficked in a dangerous drug, namely 987 grammes of a powder containing 621 grammes of ketamine. To this charge, he pleaded guilty at the first opportunity at the Committal Proceedings in the Eastern Magistracy on 30 January of this year.

Trafficking in dangerous drugs is a serious offence. Ketamine is a psychotropic drug often used with a cocktail of other drugs, commonly with Ecstasy, and it is the drug of choice for under 21 year olds. It has the potential for psychological and physiological harm to anyone who becomes dependant upon it.

The amount of drugs that you had in your possession that evening could have been divided up to provide something in the order of 5,278 doses and its street value was $125,349.

In sentencing this matter, I am bound by the guidelines set out by the Court of Appeal in Hii Siew Cheng [2008] 3 HKC 325 in which the Court of Appeal indicated that the appropriate sentence for the trafficking of between 600 and 1,000 grammes of ketamine was between 12 and 14 years.

I take a starting point of 12 years. There are no aggravating features and I give you the usual discount for your early guilty plea.

Taking into consideration the considerable mitigation advanced to me by Mr Chan on your behalf in both his oral and his written submissions to me, bearing in mind all of that, the sentence I pass upon you is one of 7 years’ imprisonment.