HKSAR v. Ho Chi Wai

HCCC 150/2016

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 150 OF 2016

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

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COURT:

Ho Chi-wai, I have taken into account everything said on your behalf. You stand convicted on your pleas of guilty, tendered today, to two offences of unlawful trafficking in dangerous drugs.

As to the discount that should be given to you for your guilty pleas, I agree with both counsel for the prosecution and for the defence that since you were committed for trial on 24 March 2016 which was before the case of HKSAR v Ngo Van Nam, CACC 418/2014 was decided on 2 September 2016, you are entitled to a full one-third discount for your guilty pleas.

Both offences were committed on 1 October 2015. The offence under the first count was committed outside a room in a housing estate in Tin Shui Wai. The offence under the second count was committed in that room. The dangerous drugs under the first count were found by the police on your person. They consisted of 81.7 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 79.7 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride.

The police also found a key in your pocket. With that key, they gained entry into the room where the dangerous drugs under the second count were found. Those dangerous drugs consisted of 125.56 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 118.46 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride and 21.50 grammes of a powder containing 13.40 grammes of ketamine.

Therefore, as far as methamphetamine hydrochloride is concerned, this case concerns a total of 207.26 grammes of a crystalline solid containing a total of 198.16 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride.

In sentencing you, I will lean towards leniency as far as that can properly be done. Wherever there is any rounding-off to be done, I will make it a rounding-down in your favour.

It is said on your behalf that the starting point in respect of each kind of dangerous drugs should be reduced on the basis that some of them were for your own consumption. The prosecution accepts that at the time of your arrest, you were a drug addict; and the prosecution further accepts that part of the drugs seized were for your own consumption. Where, as under the second count, more than one kind of dangerous drugs is involved, it is appropriate to follow what is called a combined approach, and I will do so.

For the amount of drugs involved in the first count, I adopt a starting point of 9 years and 6 months, being a reduction of 13 per cent for self-consumption of a 11 years’ imprisonment which I would have imposed if not for that factor.

For the amount of drugs involved in the second count and following the combined approach, I adopt a starting point of 11 years and 3 months, being a reduction of 13 per cent for self-consumption of a 13 years’ imprisonment which I would have imposed if not for that factor.

As I have indicated earlier, I give you a full one-third discount for your pleas of guilty, thereby reducing the sentences to one of 6 years and 4 months under the first count, and 7 years and 6 months under the second count.

If the dangerous drugs under these two counts were the subject matter of a single count, I would have adopted a starting point of 14 years’ imprisonment for it. A discount of 13 per cent for self-use followed by a further one-third discount for the guilty pleas would reduce 14 years’ imprisonment to 8 years and 1 month’s imprisonment.

In all the circumstances and bearing mind the principle of totality, I consider that an overall in sentence of 8 years and 1 month’s imprisonment to be appropriate.

To achieve that overall sentence, I sentence you to 6 years and 4 months’ imprisonment under the first count, and 7 years and 6 months’ imprisonment under the second count; and I order that 1 year and 9 months out of the 7 years and 6 months under the second count be served consecutively with the 6 years and 4 months under the first count. You will therefore go to prison for a total of 8 years and 1 month.