Chu Po-king v. The Queen

Case No.CACC 1118/1981

Court

Court of Appeal

Date09 Nov 1982

Judge—

Case Document

100%

CACC001118/1981

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL	1981 No. 1118
	(Criminal)

BETWEEN

	CHU PO-KING	Appellant
	AND
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

Coram: McMullin, U.-P., Li and Silke, JJ.A.

Date: 9 November 1982

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JUDGMENT

__________

Li, J.A.:

1. This appellant originally applied for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. We refused her leave to appeal against conviction, granted her leave to appeal against sentence and adjourned the proceedings until today at the suggestion of Crown Counsel.

2. At the last hearing the appellant indicated that she was prepared to assist the proper authorities in detecting the syndicate members of the drug ring. The adjournment was granted to inquire into her efforts.

3. The appellant was convicted of possession of 1366.76 grammes of mixture containing 413.91 grammes of salts of esters of morphine for the purpose of unlawful trafficking.

4. She was caught at the Kai Tak Airport while she attempted to leave the colony with the drugs on route to the United Kingdom. When the jury returned a verdict of guilty, they recommended to the trial judge for mercy to be shown to the appellant. The trial judge took this into account and sentenced her to 8 years imprisonment. The judge indicated that the proper sentence should be 9. In passing sentence the judge had considered all the elements in her favour in mitigation. There was nothing wrong in principle with the sentence itself. It is quite within the tariff sentence of cases of this kind.

5. At the time, it was not known to the learned trial judge that she was prepared to assist the proper authorities. Since the last hearing of this appeal she did try her very best to assist the proper authorities. Learned Counsel for the Crown very properly and fairly pointed out that although her assistance did not enable the Crown to prosecute successfully the other culprits of the offence, it was not entirely due to the fault of the appellant.

6. Counsel for the appellant suggested and asked that we should consider giving a substantial reduction of her sentence in this case. While there is nothing wrong in principle as far as the original sentence is concerned, we are inclined to be merciful. In this connection we take into consideration of her effort to help the proper authorities. We also want to encourage people who had been led astray to do the same.

7. For these reasons, we will reduce her sentence of 8 years. We allow the appeal. The sentence of 8 years imprisonment will be reduced to 5.

	(Simon F.S. Li)
	Justice of Appeal

Representation:

Colin Musscroft (D.L.A.) for appellant

J. Duffy (Crown) for respondent