His arrest was soon after he had got into a car inside a carpark in Mong Kok at the Metro Harbour View. The driver was searched by the police and he was found to have on him 10 resealable bags of cocaine. The solid contained 1.78 grammes of cocaine.
Behind the driver in the back seat, was the defendant. When he was searched, he was found to have in his trousers, 30 small bags which contained a solid weighing 5.43 grammes containing 5.19 grammes of cocaine.
The defendant immediately admitted that he was going to sell this quantity of drugs and he also admitted supplying the cocaine, which had been found on the driver for a sum of $2,000. Hence Charge 1 in this case relates to the 6.97 grammes of cocaine, in a solid weighing 7.28 grammes. That is the totality of the drugs found in the car.
When the defendant’s home address was searched, 63 small plastic bags were found. In all but one of those, cocaine was inside, and in total 38.17 grammes of cocaine were found in a solid weighing 40.67 grammes, and that represents Charge 2.
The other small bag contained 0.46 of a gramme of methamphetamine hydrochloride. That is Charge 3.
Also found at the home address were further resealable plastic bags and an electronic scale. The defendant admitted that it was his intention to sell the drugs that had been found, except of course, the subject of Charge 3, which is clearly for his personal consumption. And as Mr Ching has told me, the defendant was, at the time, a drug addict.
The estimated value of the cocaine seized was $42,723 at street value.
The defendant not only has a record for the charge of possession, for which he was on bail at the time of his arrest, but he has also served a 29 months’ sentence imposed by a court earlier on 15 May 2013 and so this defendant is acquiring an extremely bad record for selling drugs.
The total quantity of cocaine in Charges 1 and 2 amounts to 45.64 grammes. Under the Sentencing Guidelines set out in The Queen v Lau Tak Ming & Others [1992] HKLR 370, which have been adopted for cocaine, as well as for heroin, a band of 5 to 8 years is recommended for quantities between 10 and 50 grammes.
The amount involved in Charges 1 and 2, would justify a total sentence of 7½ years’ imprisonment after trial. Obviously an appropriate sentence has to be found on each charge, and furthermore, the defendant has pleaded guilty, so that he must receive a full discount.
I suppose there is still time, at his age, for him to reform. If he was older, I would certainly enlarge the sentence, both because he is a previous trafficker and because he was committing this offence on bail. I have decided not to. But come back again, this defendant will certainly probably receive from a court no sympathy whatsoever if he sells drugs again.
On Charge 1, your sentence is that you go to prison for 2 years and 8 months, from a starting point of 4 years.
On Charge 2, the sentence is 4 years and 8 months, from a starting point of 7 years’ imprisonment.
On Charge 3, the sentence is 4 months, from a starting point of 6 months.
These sentences will run concurrently, except for 4 months on Charge 1, which will run consecutively to the sentence on Charge 2. And that makes a total sentence of 5 years in all.
I think you know the sentence ought to be a bit longer, because of your record, so you can regard yourself as very lucky.