HKSAR v. Lau Chun Kit

DCCC416/2011

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 416 OF 2011

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Defendant, please stand up. The following will be your sentence and the reasons for the sentence. You appeared before me this morning and pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap.134.

2.The particulars of the offence aver that you on the 13th day of March this year, outside Ground Floor, No. 295 Lai Chi Kok Road, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, in Hong Kong, unlawfully trafficked in a dangerous drug, namely 16.86 grammes of a solid containing 15.34 grammes of cocaine.

The facts

3.This is a very simple stop-and-search case.  According to the amended Summary of Facts which has been agreed by you, on the day in question at around 3:05 am in Sham Shui Po, a team of police officers spotted you together with another two males boarding a private vehicle in a furtive manner.  As a result, the police officers approached the vehicle and intercepted all the passengers on board the vehicle for enquiry and body search. 

4.At that time, you were alighting from the rear passenger seat of the vehicle and the sergeant of the team saw that you were dropping something onto the ground and this also came to be alerted by other police officers.  As a result, another police officer seized 2 transparent plastic bags containing suspected dangerous drugs and also one Marlboro cigarette box which contained 2 other transparent plastic bags containing suspected dangerous drugs from the ground in front of you.

5.You were immediately arrested and cautioned.  Under caution you frankly admitted that as you were afraid of being arrested, you dropped the cocaine on the ground.  It turned out that the 2 plastic bags containing in the cigarette box were found to be containing another 10 smaller plastic bags.  

6.As a result of the examination conducted by the government laboratory, the plastic bags seized by the police in front of you were all found to be containing and confirmed to be dangerous drugs, namely cocaine.  The quantities are exactly as what you have been charged this morning. 

7.You were found with cash of $9,700 and 4 mobile phones on your person.

8.According to the facts, the street value of the dangerous drugs was said to be HK$17,011.  It is clear to everybody reading the facts that at the material time you possessed the drugs for the purpose of trafficking and that is exactly the basis on which you have pleaded guilty this morning.

Criminal records and background

9.You are now 26 years of age.  You have altogether 6 previous criminal convictions.  Apart from the first two offences of “managing a vice establishment”, the rest of the records are all concerning dangerous drugs with even one similar “trafficking in dangerous drugs” back in 2006.  In the past, you have been given so many chances by the court.  You have been given a probation but later the order was discharged and a Rehabilitation Centre Order was imposed instead.  Apparently, you still did not learn the lesson and, worse still, you were still consuming dangerous drugs and that was why you ended up having so many records concerning possession and even trafficking in dangerous drugs.

10.You are single and you only have a Form 3 education level. According to Mr Wong, your counsel, you were a waiter working in a restaurant at the time of the offence earning an income of $7,500 per month.  According to Mr Wong, you became a drug addict since 2004 and that was also reflected in the record because that was the first year when you began to be convicted of offences relating to dangerous drugs.  Once addicted, you were never able to kick the bad habit.

11.During the past years, you had been given short custodial sentences ranging from 14 weeks to 4 months.  It is clear to me that these sentences were not sufficient to deter you and you clearly did not learn the lesson in the hard way.  It is therefore a matter of time that you would end up in prison for a more lengthy sentence for a “trafficking in dangerous drugs” offence and that is exactly what is going to happen in this case. 

12.I was told by Mr Wong that the reason why you committed the present offence was in order to satisfy your crave for the dangerous drugs and you needed money to buy the dangerous drugs. 

13.Trafficking in dangerous drugs is of course a very serious offence.  Anyone who is involved in trafficking in dangerous drugs and especially in relation to hard drugs such as cocaine with substantial quantities will expect the court to deal with him severely. 

14.Mr Wong properly acknowledged that in your case the only and effective mitigation is your plea of guilty today.  I was further shown a letter written by yourself which indicated your remorse and in it you asked the court to consider giving you a last chance and you promised that you would not re-offend again and you would equip yourself by learning some skills in the prison and you also promise to be a useful member of the society in the future.  I can only hope that you will would live up to your promise.  This is something very important to your family members who are now in court to support you today. 

15.For trafficking in dangerous drugs concerning cocaine, the tariff guideline in R v Lau Tak Ming & others [1990] 2 HKLR 370 applied.  According to the tariff, for a quantity of cocaine between 10 grammes and 50 grammes, the sentence is said to be 5 to 8 years.  The present case involved, as it were, 16.86 grammes of a solid containing 15.34 grammes of cocaine.  Mr Wong urged the court to adopt a starting point of between 5 and 5½ years so that a lower starting point can enable you to complete your sentence more earlier.

16.In the end, I decided to adopt a starting point of 5 years and 3 months, namely 63 months in total.  Because of your plea, you would be entitled to the usual one-third discount, with 21 months deducted.  I therefore sentence you to 42 months’

imprisonment.