On 23 November last year, he was seen entering a building in a village in the region of Tai Po. When he left a few minutes later, his manner was nervous and he was holding a bag. He was intercepted and when the bag was examined, it was found to contain 21 resealable bags containing a solid weighing 504 grammes, the narcotic content of which was 407 grammes.
The defendant told the police that he was helping someone to deliver these drugs. He was also in possession of $25,270 and 350 renminbi, two mobile phones and the keys to the premises he had left but when those premises were searched, the further 504 grammes of a solid containing 406 grammes of cocaine were found. It was a tiny amount of cocaine on the two electronic scales in the flat and a quantity of unused resealable plastic bags.
So the combined weight of the solid amounts to just over 1,008 grammes containing a total of 813 grammes of cocaine and the street value of that sort of amount is in excess of $1,376,000.
The sentencing tariffs which apparently have been explained to the defendant and indeed Mr Davis has been very thorough in his mitigation. These tariffs are set out in HKSAR v Abdallah Anwar Abbas, [2009] HKC 197 and they provide a recommended sentence of between 20 and 23 years’ imprisonment for amounts involving 600 to 1,200 grammes after trial and in my opinion in this case an appropriate starting point after trial for this amount would have been 21 years’ imprisonment.
The defendant is well aware that what his offence amounts to is a really serious criminal offence in Hong Kong. Very many families are badly affected by people who help the drugs trade get those drugs into circulation and that is why the sentence for cocaine trafficking and other very dangerous drugs is so high. The reality is that these drugs destroy families. I am very sad for your family in particular for what has happened and it gives me no pleasure to send you to prison for these offences.
Each charge here relates to almost exactly the same quantity of cocaine and taking the guidelines which have been provided for roughly 400 grammes in each case, the appropriate sentence after trial on each charge would be 15 years’ imprisonment. That is on Counts 1 and on Count 2. You have pleaded guilty in good time and you will receive the full discount.
On each of these charges the sentence is 10 years’ imprisonment but 4 years of the sentence on the 2nd charge must run consecutively to the sentence on the 1st charge. This means that your sentence is 14 years’ imprisonment in all.