COURT: The defendant had pleaded guilty in the lower court to one charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely 54.08 grammes of a solid containing 49 grammes of cocaine, 3.74 grammes of a powder containing 1.71 grammes of cocaine, and 7.25 grammes of a powder containing 6.18 grammes of ketamine.
The facts are not unusual at all. In the evening of 27 March, the defendant was spotted by police officers carrying a brown leather bag. When he was approached by these officers, he suddenly turned around and immediately threw something which he had taken out from his bag to the planter box outside the Mutual Aid Committee Office in Kai Ching Estate.
Then he ran and police officers gave chase, and outside the YMCA again he dropped off some plastic bags to the ground and continued to run. And then when he reached the pavement outside a kindergarten, he also threw away something in the planter box. Eventually he was caught and arrested.
Inside the defendant’s leather bag was found some 20 plastic bags of suspected dangerous drugs.
Under caution, he admitted that referring to “Coke” and the “K Chai”, that he was asked to help another person to bring. On his person were found three mobile phones, cash of $6,899 and cash of Renminbi 685.
Subsequently, all the bags that he threw away along the route of his escape together with the plastic bags found inside his leather bag upon arrest was subsequently examined and were found to contain the dangerous drugs, the subject matter of the charge.
The average retail price of the cocaine and the ketamine is just over $100,000.
And the defendant is aged 40 and has a poor record. He has 16 previous convictions, 11 of which were dangerous drug related, he also has previous convictions for trafficking twice and was convicted in the District Court. So he has been given many chances but that did not seem to deter him.
In mitigation, Mr Cheng submitted that the defendant wants a short sentence in order to go and take care of his family and that he has young children and he is the sole breadwinner of the family. His main mitigation is really his plea. Family circumstances are not factors to be given any considerable weight in light of this serious offence. Furthermore, the defendant does not seem to have learned his lesson from previous sentences imposed on him in drug cases.
So having considered the amounts of the dangerous drugs found, most of it was cocaine and only 6.18 grammes was ketamine. So I propose to add it all up together and the ketamine into cocaine, it will be 56.89 grammes in total.
And according to Lau Tak Ming’s guidelines, trafficking in between 50 to 200 grammes would invite a sentence of anywhere between 8 to 12 years’ imprisonment. In this case, 56.89 grammes, I will determine that a reasonable sentence will be one of 8½ years’ imprisonment after trial.
Giving the defendant the full one-third discount, it will be reduced to 5 years and 8 months.