CRIMINAL CASE NO. 57 OF 2011
COURT: On 23 September of last year, at around 6.30 pm in the evening, several police officers were on burglary prevention patrol. They drove their police vehicle into the Ping Tong Street West Public Carpark in Yuen Long. One of the officers in the police vehicle noticed there was a man, which turned out to be the defendant, who was standing behind a black Mitsubishi private motor vehicle and his conduct appeared to that officer to be suspicious.
The officer instructed the driver of the police vehicle to move closer to where the defendant was standing. He, the defendant, was observed to take from the boot of the black Mitsubishi car a dark-brown-coloured paper bag. This he took and placed in the driver’s seat of the car.
When the police vehicle stopped behind the defendant’s motorcar, an officer in uniform alighted. Upon seeing this, the defendant locked the motorcar and ran into an alleyway in the direction of Castle Peak Road. The police officers gave chase and eventually apprehended the defendant at the lamppost which is referred to in the particulars of the charge.
In the defendant’s shoulder-bag when he was apprehended were the keys to the black Mitsubishi motorcar. Upon apprehension, he told the police that the reason he had run away was that he had some ketamine in his car. The officers and the defendant returned to the motorcar and using the keys that were found in the defendant’s shoulder-bag, opened the door. Inside on the driver’s seat, was a brown paper bag which, upon examination, was found to contain 12 plastic bags in which they suspected were dangerous drugs.
Those suspicions proved to be correct and subsequent analysis determined that the contents of the plastic bag was 219.71 grammes of a powder containing 153.35 grammes of ketamine. That ketamine had a street value in excess of $24,000.
Today, before me, the defendant has admitted in a Summary of Facts that he possessed that ketamine for the purposes of trafficking. On his behalf, Mr Davies tells me that he was paid $1,000 for the purposes of delivering it on that occasion.
The defendant is aged 29. He has no prior convictions. On his behalf, Mr Davies tells me that he is not a drug addict and that this offence was entirely out of character. I have before me a number of written submissions on his behalf from members of his family, his girlfriend and others who attest to the fact that he is, and has been previous to this, a person of good character. All of these are matters I will take into account in his favour.
The Court of Appeal has provided guidelines for those who are sentencing persons convicted of trafficking in dangerous drugs. In the case of the dangerous drug ketamine, those guidelines are set out in the reported judgment of The Secretary for Justice v Hii Siew Cheng [2009] 1 HKLRD at page 1. The guidelines in that judgment indicate that for a person who is convicted after trial of trafficking in between 50 and 300 grammes of ketamine, a starting point for sentence of 6 to 9 years is appropriate.
When the Court of Appeal set these guidelines, they indicated then that ketamine is one of the most popular drugs of abuse for persons under the age of 21. It is a drug which has the potential for causing a wide range of psychological and physiological harm. It is potentially highly dangerous.
Bearing in mind the observations of the Court of Appeal and the guidance that has been provided, I am satisfied that, after trial, for this quantity of ketamine, a starting point for sentence of 7 years and 2 months’ imprisonment is appropriate.
The defendant is entitled to a full one-third discount from that starting point for his plea of guilty. There are, regrettably, no other factors in his personal circumstances or in the circumstances of the commission of the offence which would justify any increase beyond that one-third.
In those circumstances, giving allowance for that one-third discount, the appropriate sentence to be imposed is a term of imprisonment of 4 years and 9 months and that is the sentence that I impose.