CRIMINAL CASE NO. 98 OF 2010
COURT: The defendant has pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely 245.09 grammes of a powder containing 165.41 grammes of ketamine.
The Admitted Facts show that on the evening of 8 October last year at about 8.43 pm, two very alert police constables on patrol in the King Lam Neighbourhood Community Centre in Tseung Kwan O saw the defendant walking with a black plastic bag in his left hand.
Upon seeing the police officers, the defendant turned around and ran in the opposite direction, and the officers gave chase. Police officers saw the defendant throw away the plastic bag onto the ground during the chase, and subsequently, shortly after, the defendant was arrested.
The plastic bag was found to contain the drugs in the charge.
The defendant is a young man aged 23, and as can appear from the antecedents statement and from Mr Whitehouse’s mitigation, it would appear that he comes from a stable background and he lives at home with his family. He is close to his family, as can be shown by the fact that his family is here today in court.
He studied up to the Form 5 level, and unfortunately, in the year 2002, he began to enter into the records of the police with a minor infringement. His record was further blemished in 2006 on 17 August, when he was sent to a rehabilitation centre for theft and possession of dangerous drugs.
Mr Whitehouse submitted that perhaps that was due to the death of his mother five years ago, which may have caused this defendant to fall off the road by indulging himself as perhaps, without the mother there, he lacked the discipline.
But this is no excuse. The defendant is 23, and, as Mr Whitehouse pointed out, he is an intelligent young man.
Trafficking in a dangerous drug is a very serious offence, particularly, in this day and age, trafficking in ketamine. Ketamine is very prevalent, especially amongst our young people, and is what we would call the “drug de jour”, or the drug of the day. It is easily disseminated to the young people in drinking places, in discotheques, and many of the lives of families have been affected by children who have gone off the rails by being addicted to ketamine, and that is why the Court of Appeal therefore, in the case of Hii Siew Cheng Cr App 7/2006, laid down guidelines for sentencing in trafficking in ketamine.
We all have a duty to protect the young people in Hong Kong, and therefore deterrent sentences have to be given for drug trafficking offences. So even for a young man with a clear record, he is to be sent to prison.
Mr Whitehouse is, of course, correct in saying that the courts, in sentencing, do not work out a sentence mathematically according to the guidelines. The court has to consider the facts of the case and all the background of the defendant in arriving at a proper sentence.
Mr Whitehouse is at a loss to explain why the defendant came to be carrying such a large amount of drugs, because he says the defendant comes from a very stable background, and he has a job, and he is not a member of any triad society and he is not a drug addict. He lives at home with his family. His father is a respectable man with a good career, and so it does not seem like his family needed the money. So the temptation therefore in this case is perhaps the defendant wanted to make easy money. That is the reason many young people fall into this trade.
I have considered everything that was said in mitigation, and I consider that an appropriate starting point in this case would be one of 7 years’ imprisonment.
There is no mitigating factor apart from the fact that the defendant has pleaded guilty, so he is entitled to the full one-third discount.
Therefore, the sentence is reduced to one of 56 months, which is 4 years and 8 months.
The defendant is sentenced to prison for that length of time.