CRIMINAL CASE NO. 167 OF 2009
COURT: Tai Yuk-fong, you have pleaded guilty to trafficking in dangerous drugs, those drugs being methamphetamine hydrochloride, or “Ice”, and the quantity being very slightly under 40 grammes.
You were stopped and searched in the early hours of 20 November 2008, and the dangerous drugs were found in your bag. You immediately said that you were being paid $500 by someone called “Ah Cheung” to deliver it, and that you had agreed because you had no money.
Later, you said that you met this person outside a methadone clinic in November 2008, that your CSSA payment was not enough to live on, and that this was the first time you had delivered drugs.
The street value of the “Ice” was about $28,000.
Of course, your desperate circumstances were, in a sense, created by you, because you are a drug addict who has failed to take advantage of previous treatment under probation and DATC, and you have to feed your habit as well as your children, so of course CSSA is not enough.
You have been told that sentences for trafficking in dangerous drugs are determined by reference to guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal in relation to different types of dangerous drugs, so that all traffickers in a particular type of drug are dealt with on the same basis, and in your case, approximately 40 grammes of “Ice” puts you in the bracket of 10 to 70 grammes, for which 7 to 10 years’ imprisonment before discount for mitigation is prescribed by the appropriate guidelines in a case called Ching Kwok Hung.
In fact, 40 grammes is the midpoint of the bracket, so the starting point for sentence should be 8½ years’ imprisonment. That is the sentence which would have been imposed if you had no mitigation.
However, you do have mitigation available to you, and that is mainly your plea of guilty. Although this case has been listed for trial, you indicated through those representing you your plea of guilty in advance of the hearing, and you are entitled to full credit for that plea, and that results in a discount of one-third from the starting point.
I note also that you are the mother of four young children and that you have no previous convictions for trafficking in dangerous drugs. I have regard to the letters from your partner, your sisters, and the church minister.
You and your family must understand that the sentences laid down by the Court of Appeal are severe because they are designed to deter people from trafficking in dangerous drugs. The purpose is to try to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs, as you have, with all the consequent misery which it brings to addicts and their families.
I take into account all the mitigation which has been advanced on your behalf and which appears on the papers before me, and I reduce your sentence from 8 years 6 months to a term of 5 years and 6 months.