CRIMINAL CASE NO. 162 OF 2009
COURT: Cheung Sau-chak, you have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to trafficking in 246.60 grammes of a powder containing 175.76 grammes of ketamine.
The drugs in question were being carried by you in a taxi in the early hours of 29 December last year. You had told the taxi driver to take you to Mong Kok, but on seeing a police roadblock in Tai Po Road, Sham Shui Po, you had suddenly got out of the taxi. You were then chased by the police. During the course of the chase, you dropped the plastic bag containing the drugs.
When you were finally apprehended and arrested and cautioned, you admitted that you had been asked to deliver the ketamine to Argyle Street in return for a reward of $500.
The estimated retail value of the drugs at the time was $29,345.
At the time of the offence you were an adult of 20 years of age. You had already been before the courts once before in 2007 in respect of an offence involving dangerous drugs, albeit that it was for simple possession.
You can have been in no doubt that very serious consequences would follow if you were caught trafficking in drugs. Nonetheless, you decided to take that risk.
At the time you committed this offence, you were under supervision following your release from detention centre five months earlier. Your period in the detention centre clearly had not persuaded you to lead a law-abiding life. As a consequence, you now inevitably face a long period of imprisonment. You have to realise that unless you make a determined decision to put your criminal and irresponsible past behind you, you are likely to spend the rest of your life in and out of prison. I hope you take the decision not to waste your life in that way.
I am satisfied that the appropriate starting point in respect of this offence is 7½ years’ imprisonment. The only real mitigation in your case is your early plea of guilty, for which you are entitled to the usual discount of one‑third.
I sentence you to 5 years’ imprisonment.