HKSAR V.Lau Siu Wah
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DCCC 353/2013 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO 353 OF 2013 ----------------------
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--------------------- Reasons for Sentence --------------------- 1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of trafficking in dangerous drugs, contrary to Section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. 2.You admitted that on 15 January 2013 at a staircase on the third floor of No.156 Temple Street, Yau Ma Tei, you unlawfully trafficked in 12.01 grammes of a mixture containing 10.16 grammes of heroin hydrochloride. 3.On the day in question, police officers had observed you acting suspiciously when you left that building in Temple Street at about 7.25 am. However, they lost sight of you soon after that. 4.In the meantime they conducted a vertical beat control in that very building that you left from. 5.At 8.40 am they then came across you again on the third floor staircase of the building. They intercepted you for enquiry and, upon search of your right front jacket pocket the drugs were found and contained in 80 smaller packets. 6.You were arrested and, under caution, you claimed that you had been paid $500 to keep these drugs in 80 pallets of heroin (“sei chai”) in custody. You told the officers that you would be contacted by that person to return the drugs to him later. The estimated street value of the heroin found upon you was in the sum of $8,300. 7.Defendant, your solicitor Mr Wong has mitigated fully and thoroughly on your behalf. 8.You are 54 years of age, you will soon be 55 in about 2 weeks’ time. You have 43 previous convictions, of which four of them are for trafficking in dangerous drugs, one for possession of dangerous drugs for the purposes of unlawful trafficking, 18 for possession of dangerous drugs and four for apparatus fit and intended for the smoking or inhaling of dangerous drugs, plus a host of other offences. 9.I am informed by Mr Wong that in view of your dependency of taking drugs, about 10 years ago you had to have an operation on your leg because the effects of injecting the drugs had caused some difficulty. Therefore, part of your bone in the left leg was removed and you are now crippled and walk with difficulty. You receive $2,100 in disability allowance from the government. 10.One of your last convictions was one of trafficking in dangerous drugs, to which you were sentenced to 34 months in April 2011. Since then, I am informed that you have been relying on your disability allowance. 11.Mr Wong has told me that you had met a friend in the park that morning in Temple Street and he offered you $500 to keep the drugs or store the drugs for him and that you would then later return it to him whom you called “Uncle Fred”. As you were in financial constraints, you accepted the $500 out of greed. 12.Mr Wong has urged me to take into account the relatively minor role played by you in that you were only going to store the drugs. He has submitted and relied upon the case of HKSAR v Leung Kwai Ping [2001] 4 HKC 383. 13.In your case, defendant, you were storing the drugs. It is clear from that case that store men should not receive less than a tariff sentence. 14.Nevertheless, Mr Wong asked me to take into account the fact that you played a very minor role and asked me to take a starting point at the bottom end of the range. 15.It is clear that the drugs that you had in your possession for trafficking falls between the band of between 10 and 15 grammes, where the sentence range is one of between 5 to 8 years’ imprisonment. 16.This is your sixth conviction for trafficking in dangerous drugs. The drugs, it would appear in this case today, were similar in amount to the drugs that you had been convicted of in your last offence in 2011, if I go by the terms to which you were sentenced. 17.I see nothing in the facts before me to start at a lesser starting point than what the tariff guidelines so state. 18.In the circumstances – defendant had I convicted you after trial for trafficking in this quantity of drugs, I would have taken a starting point of 5 years’ imprisonment. 19.Giving you full credit for your plea of guilty, I reduce that term to 3 years 4 months’ imprisonment, to which you shall be so sentenced.
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