CRIMINAL CASE NO. 239 OF 2011
COURT: Lau Shing-kit, you have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to trafficking in 249.61 grammes of a powder containing 183.99 grammes of ketamine.
Those drugs were being carried by you in your jacket pocket when you came out from a public lavatory at the junction of Tai Hom Road and Sheung Yuen Street in Wong Tai Sin in the evening of 6 January this year.
After you had been arrested by the police you immediately admitted you had been trafficking in the drugs for somebody called Ah Nam but claimed that it was the first time you had done it.
Later you explained that you had met Ah Nam the previous night and he had offered you $500 to collect the drugs from the public lavatory and then bring them to him in Choi Hung Road Playground. You were arrested as you came out of the public lavatory before you had received any reward.
This was a substantial quantity of ketamine with a street value at the time of about $28,000. In considering the appropriate sentence in this case I have borne in mind that at the time you committed this offence it was only just over two months since you had turned 17. That is a factor, however, that is normally of limited significance when it comes to an offence as serious as that of trafficking in dangerous drugs.
As I am sure Mr Whitehouse has told you, the normal starting point for those who traffick in between 50 grammes and 300 grammes of ketamine is between 6 and 9 years’ imprisonment.
Despite the fact that it is only in rare and exceptional cases that a training centre order is appropriate where an offender has trafficked in a substantial quantity of drugs, I was persuaded by Mr Whitehouse, although with considerable hesitation, to call for a report as to your suitability for detention in a training centre.
That is because you have only very recently finished serving a rehabilitative sentence of detention in a detention centre. You were arrested for this offence on 6 January this year. Two months later, on 11 March, you were sentenced to detention in a detention centre for two offences of theft that you had committed the previous summer.
You finished serving that sentence on 29 August. Although you were released from detention centre you were kept in custody in relation to this offence. If I was to impose a sentence of imprisonment in respect of this offence it would mean the courts, at least substantially, abandoning the rehabilitative approach to your future which had started with the detention in a detention centre.
I should state that this is not a course I would shrink from if it was in the best interests of society.
I have received the report as to your suitability for training centre. In that report it is recorded that the supervision officer of Sha Tsui Correctional Institution where you were detained took the view that you appeared to have made steady progress at Sha Tsui Detention Centre and that generally you had behaved well.
The prospects of you now leading a law-abiding and responsible life seem fair. The report states that you are considered suitable for detention in a training centre. You told the admission officer that during your period of detention in a detention centre you had reflected on your wrong doing and were determined to make a fresh start.
This court has a duty to make it clear to you and to all who may be minded to indulge in such activity that drug trafficking will be severely dealt with.
Although the quantity of drugs in this case would, if a purely mathematical approach was adopted, put this case in the middle of the tariff band to which I have referred, the Court of Appeal has made it clear that there are other factors that a sentencing judge may take into account in deciding where within the tariff band a particular case should fall.
Although little weight can be attached to the factor of age, other factors include the extent of your involvement with the drugs as well as any previous history with narcotic offences. In your case I am prepared to accept for the purpose of sentence that you had never been involved with drugs before and had only just collected the drugs from the public toilet for which you were to be rewarded with $500.
Insofar as a sentence of imprisonment is concerned I am satisfied that the appropriate starting point would be at the bottom of the tariff band, namely, 6 years’ imprisonment. After a discount for your plea of guilty the sentence of the court would be one of 4 years’ imprisonment. With remission for good behaviour you would probably be entitled to release after 2 years 8 months.
On the other hand, a sentence of detention in a training centre would give the authorities the power, if it was thought necessary, to detain you for up to 3 years. You would also be subject to supervision and if necessary recall for a further three years. In addition you would already have experienced prison for the period of almost 3 months in which you have been on remand in connection with this offence. Such a sentence would still send a clear message that such conduct is totally unacceptable.
You are someone who committed thefts from computer centres last year. At the start of this year you became involved in this drug trafficking. Clearly you had embarked on a course of conduct which if it does not stop will lead to you spending much of your life in and out of prison.
I am satisfied that it is in the best interests of society to take an exceptional course in your case and to continue to give you the opportunity to change the course your life had appeared to be heading.
A sentence of detention in a training centre will I hope bring home to you the gravity of what you have done.
It will also give you assistance when you are released to put the past behind you. For that reason I order that you be detained in a training centre.
Please refer to CAAR8/2011 for the relevant appeal(s) to the Court of Appeal.