HKSAR v. Lee Wing Yan

HCCC 320/2017

[2018] HKCFI 1934

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 320 OF 2017

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Transcript of the Audio Recording

of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:

Ms Lee, you have been found guilty after trial by jury of trafficking in 759 grammes of cocaine, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap 134.

On the 20 March of last year, you agreed with a man whom you referred to as ‘Ah Tang’- to travel via the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point in order to collect a parcel from someone at Gate No 2 of the Futian Port. The exercise of crossing the border, collecting the parcel and re-entering Hong Kong took just 27 minutes and you were to be paid HK$5,000 for your efforts. The parcel you collected was approximately 15 centimetres by 15 centimetres and weighed a kilogramme. But you told the jury that you had no idea what was inside and thought that you were simply and innocently carrying grey goods. They did not believe you. They unanimously found that you knew that you were carrying dangerous drugs that day, and you now fall to be sentenced for trafficking in a large amount of cocaine.

Mr Alan, on the last occasion, reminded the court that you were a woman of good character and that you came from a loving and supportive home and I think you are now 25. You were 23, at the time of the offence and you will face a considerable number of years behind bars.

On that occasion he offered no explanation from you as to why you committed this offence, and indeed Mr Ma today offered no explanation from you as to why you committed this offence. And from both of those mitigations, I can see that you have absolutely no remorse nor do you apologize for the harm which your selfish actions would have caused to other mothers of children, aunts of children who decided to take the cocaine which you were trafficking.

You were a courier. Drug traffickers rely on people like you who are either naive or simply greedy or think that they can beat the system in order to bring very harmful merchandise into Hong Kong. Those people made substantial profits.

The dangerous drugs which you were carrying that day had a street value of just under a million dollars.

It is no surprise that they were willing to pay you $5,000 dollars for a 27-minute walk. And you must have realised the risk that you were taking that day because you were being paid for 27 minutes’ worth of work. But nevertheless, you decided you would take that risk.

The verdict of the jury would no doubt have been a shock to you, Ms Lee. It will, I had hoped, finally brought home to you the seriousness of the situation you are in, although now I do not think that is the case because you have dispensed with counsel who capably defended you with a degree of vigour during the trial and would have been ideally placed to mitigate on behalf of you today.

I know that your mother and your aunt supported you during the trial, as I would have expected them to do, and I think they are most probably here again today. And I am sure and I sincerely hope that you realise how much your sentence today is going to affect them. They must be devastated about what has happened to you and it is they that will be asking themselves what they did wrong when they raised you because that is what mothers and aunts and family do. Because you clearly are not taking any responsibility whatsoever for your part in this. I have a real degree of sympathy for the devastation that you have caused to them.

But all I can say to them is this was at your door, they did not do anything wrong. You made foolish decisions, because you thought you could beat the system and now you sadly are going to pay the price and they are going to pay the price too. More people than you are being punished today.

The sentencing guidelines for quantities such as you have imported, are found in HKSAR v Abdallah [2009] 2 HKLRD 437. For trafficking in between 600 and 1,200 grammes, the range of sentence is 20 to 23 years. For trafficking in 795 grammes therefore the appropriate starting point after trial is 21 years. There is also the aggravating feature that this was an exercise of importation and the guidelines in Abdallah suggest that for amounts over 500 grammes and up to a thousand grammes, the additional sentence I should impose is between 1 and 2 years. The appropriate additional sentence is therefore one of 1 year and 6 months, making a total of 22 years and 6 months. There has been no mitigation of any sort put forward on your behalf which I can accept, and which can reduce that figure. And as I have said, you have indicated absolutely no remorse.

You will go to prison for 22 years and 6 months.