HKSAR v. Su Dahao

HCCC 178/2018

[2019] HKCFI 375

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 178 OF 2018

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Reasons for Sentence

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COURT:

Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to two charges before the magistrate sitting in the Eastern Magistracy on 28 May 2018. The 1st charge was that of trafficking in dangerous drugs to which you admitted trafficking in 64.60 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 63.94 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride, otherwise commonly known as “Ice”. In respect to the 2nd charge, you admitted that you had in your possession 3.15 grammes of a solid containing 2.58 grammes of cocaine. Both charges were committed on 24 September 2017 outside No 24 Nam Kok Road, Kowloon City, Kowloon.

On 24 September, at night, a team of police officers were conducting anti-burglary patrol. They noticed you were acting furtively and intercepted you for a search outside No 24 Nam Kok Road. At that time, you were carrying a McDonald’s paper bag. The drugs, as stated in Charges 1 and 2, were found in the bag. In respect to the 1st charge of trafficking, there were seven plastic bags. In respect to the 2nd charge of possession of dangerous drugs, there were 17 plastic bags of cocaine. You also had in your possession $17,174.50, one mobile phone and four mobile phone SIM cards.

In a video-recorded interview conducted in the presence of your father, you admitted that the cocaine was for your self-consumption and the “Ice” was for trafficking. You had said that on the day of the arrest, you had been told and given instructions by a fat male to deliver these drugs and you had collected or picked up these drugs outside McDonald’s restaurant which were already contained in the paper bag.

The retail value of the “Ice” was in the sum of $21,253 and the cocaine, $2,898 in September 2017.

Defendant, you are 17 years of age today. At the date of this offence, you were 16. You have a clear record. You have been educated up to secondary level 2. At the time of this offence, you were a drug abuser of cocaine. Your counsel, Ms Monica Chow, has made a very impassioned mitigation on your behalf. As she rightly says, it is a very sad story of how you came to be involved in trafficking in dangerous drugs.

You came to Hong Kong when you were 11 years of age from mainland China. Having come to Hong Kong, you then entered secondary level 2. However, due to cultural differences and differences in education, you found it very difficult to make friends or catch up with the schooling in Hong Kong. You left behind your mother in mainland China and lived with your father in Hong Kong. Your father was, at that time, preoccupied with his occupation as a cook and you were therefore left on your own. Shortly thereafter, your mother passed away.

As you had difficulty catching up at school, you then left school and then, as is in many of these cases, started frequenting video game centres and then came to be involved with undesirable peers. From that time on it appears that you then seemed to have broken away from your home, you rarely went home and your relationship with your father was distant. In fact, Ms Chow tells me that you rarely went home, and as can be seen from the facts, you then mixed with these undesirable peers and became involved in drug trafficking and started even to abuse drugs.

You are a very young man, 16 years old, and as Ms Chow has said, also naïve. Your letter to me, I believe, speaks from your heart and you are feeling very remorseful for the crime that you have committed, and you of course feel sorry for the pain you have caused to your father.

The letters from your father and your aunts, also plead in your mitigation and ask for leniency. They say that you are a simple young man clearly without adult guidance who committed this offence. You also have the support of Mr Chow, a social worker who has reiterated your remorse and expressed that you have determination to turn a new leaf. What Ms Chow has said that has a silver lining that has come about by you committing this offence is that your father and you seem to have been brought back to be much closer and you have set out a plan together to, when you are eventually released, to join him in his occupation as being a cook.

As I am sure you know and have been advised, defendant, that you are facing a lengthy term of imprisonment. You will have much time to reflect. As to your future now, I accept you know you have done wrong previously but now as to your future and how best to follow a path to make your future a bright one. You will do this I am sure with the assistance of your father and your relatives but more so you must do it for yourself. You will have opportunities, given your young age in the future and it is time for you now to think whether you wish to acquire skills or even education whilst you are serving your term. As Ms Chow has said, because of your young age, when you are eventually released, you will still be a young man. So given the many years you will have ahead of you, do not throw them away.

There are clear guidelines for me to follow in sentencing you for trafficking in the dangerous drug “Ice”. The tariff guideline case is of course that of Tam Yi Chun, and for between 10 to 70 grammes of trafficking “Ice”, the starting point is that of between 7 to 11 years’ imprisonment after trial.

Defendant, had you been convicted after trial, I would have taken a sentence of 10 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. You pleaded guilty at the very earliest opportunity and therefore that sentence shall be reduced by one-third and you shall be sentenced to 7 years imprisonment.

In respect of Charge 2, had you been convicted after trial, I would have taken a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment. Giving you credit of one-third for your plea of guilty, that term shall be reduced to 8 months’ imprisonment. That term shall run concurrent to Charge 1, making your total term of imprisonment still to be that of 7 years imprisonment. Although you are 16 years of age, I do not consider that to be of extreme youth and therefore no further discount can be made to the sentence, and I see no further mitigating factor such as to discount further your sentence and/or any aggravating factors in commission of this offence.