HKSAR v. Lam Mei Ling

HCCC 501/2015

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 501 OF 2015

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

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COURT: Defendant, you were found guilty after trial by a jury of the charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug. That charge was the 2nd count on the indictment. You were found to have trafficked in 24.85 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 24.17 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride, otherwise commonly known as ‘Ice’.

From the jury’s verdict, you trafficked these drugs on 28 October 2014, near Hing Cheung House, Tai Hing Estate, Tuen Mun, together with Kwok Chi-hung. Kwok Chi-hung was a witness, or otherwise known as an accomplice, in this case and he gave evidence against you. He in fact had pleaded guilty in a separate trial last year to trafficking in the same drugs on the same date, thus a trafficking offence on the same date.

You have now been found guilty of the same offence in that you acted jointly with him in committing this offence - that is, committing this offence together with Kwok.

You are 32 years of age, born in Hong Kong and have three daughters to which I have heard are in foster care. You have received education up to form three in Hong Kong. At the time of this offence you were unemployed and you were a drug-dependent. You have two previous convictions, one of burglary to which you were sentenced to imprisonment for 24 months in 2006, and another conviction for possession of equipment fit and intended for smoking, injecting or inhaling dangerous drugs to which you were sentenced to the Drug Addiction Treatment Centre in December 2014. You were released from DATC on 29 June 2015. It was after your release from DATC that you were charged with this present offence.

Your counsel, Mr Raffell, had asked me to call for a background report to assist me or to inform me about your family circumstances. He said that you have had quite a tragic background. However, he has not enlightened me as to any particular factor which would assist me by calling for a background report such as to have that as a particular important mitigating factor. As you well know, trafficking in dangerous drugs is a very, very serious offence and any family circumstances or tragic backgrounds or young age, elderly or disabled are not considered to be mitigating factors to reduce any terms of imprisonment.

I do, however, take into account the fact that in the trafficking of these drugs you may not have been the leader or the person further up in the chain. There does clearly seem to be another person involved, and that was a person that is mentioned in the admitted facts as “somebody unknown”. That person may have been giving you instructions as to what to do. For example, knowing the drugs are there he did not want to get you into trouble and therefore told you, “I don’t want you in trouble, don’t pick it up”. You replied to that unknown person to say, “I’ve asked Ah Kwok to come over and pick it up”. Therefore, I accept from this evidence that you may well have just been a courier supplying and delivering these drugs to Kwok being instructed by somebody else.

The Court of Appeal has laid down tariffs for trafficking in the drug ‘Ice’. In HKSAR v Tam Yi Chun [2014] the Court of Appeal recast the guidelines for trafficking in ‘Ice’. You committed this offence after the guidelines were recast and therefore they are applicable in your case. For an amount between 10 and 70 grammes of ‘Ice’, the term should be one of between 7 to 11 years’ imprisonment after trial. You have one conviction related to dangerous drugs but I shall ignore that conviction in considering the appropriate sentence.

I also bear in mind that your accomplice, Kwok, pleaded guilty to this offence and was sentenced for this offence for the same amount of drugs and there should be no distinction in the starting point for sentence between his sentence and yours. He of course pleaded guilty and received a discount of one-third. You have not pleaded guilty, the usual discount therefore does not apply to you.

Having considered the relevant facts in this case and following the new guidelines, I consider a sentence of 7 years and 9 months to be appropriate and you are sentenced to that term accordingly.