The Queen v. Edwin Otho White

CACC000335/1983

BETWEEN

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Coram: McMullin, V.-P., Li & Silke, JJ.A.

Date: 12th May 1983

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JUDGMENT

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Silke, J.A.:

1. The applicant pleaded guilty to an offence under section 14(l)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. He was in transit on a scheduled flight from Katmandu to Los Angeles. He became ill, was taken off the plane and to hospital and there a mixture of 175.96 grammes containing l62 grammes of salts of esters of morphine was found on him. Part in his sock and the major part in his stomach in rubber bags.

2. He has suggested to us that he had no intention of coming into the city itself and he says he had no visa but this matters not for the offence is committed at the moment the plane lands in Hong Kong.

3. The drugs in transit were to be brought to the United States of America. It is quite wrong that Hong Kong should be permitted to be used as a transit point or a staging point for the transmission of drugs to other countries.

4. The applicant has suffered from the very carrying of the drugs in that one of the bags broke and apparently caused him to lose consciousness and necessitated a stay in hospital and an operation.

5. Trafficking in drugs is a nefarious trade and does untold harm to other persons.

6. Without the use of couriers its proliferation would be inhibited.

7. We accept that it is the unpleasant habit of those who traffic in drugs to attempt to use as couriers persons under a disability - be that disability arising from youth, age or some physical impairment. They use persons such as that in order to elicit sympathy from the Courts, if that were possible, when they are caught.

8. We would make it clear that, in taking the course we have in this case, we do so as an act of mercy and as an exceptional matter - not as a matter which can be used as a precedent for the future.

9. The applicant's disability is a somewhat unusual one and does, we appreciate, place him in particular difficulties in the environment into which he has fallen. But leaving that aside he has now but a short period of his sentence to serve.

10. We think that he has been punished sufficiently for the offence which he committed. We have no desire whatsoever to in any way inhibit the Courts of this Colony in imposing sentences of imprisonment appropriate to the offence in matters of this kind where a person is suffering from a disability.

11. In the circumstances we grant leave to appeal out of time, allow the application and allow the appeal by substituting for the sentence of two years' imprisonment passed upon the applicant such sentence as will permit his immediate release.

Representation:

Applicant in person.

G.W. Alderdice, Esq. for Crown/Respondent.