Wong Yan Wai v. The Queen
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CACC001288/1976
----------------- Coram: Briggs, C.J., Huggins and Pickering, JJ.A. Date of Judgment: 7th January, 1977. ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- Pickering, J.A. 1. The Appellant was the manager of a chicken farm. Upon the farm being raided by police, paraphernalia associated with the manufacture of dangerous drugs was found together with a quantity of dangerous drugs and some 11 ½ litres of acetic anhydride. Upon his subsequent trial the Appellant was found not guilty of manufacturing dangerous drugs but guilty of (a) doing an act preparatory to the manufacture of a dangerous drug, (b) possession of dangerous drugs for the purpose of unlawful trafficking and (c) possession of acetylating substance. Upon these three charges he was sentenced to 5 years, 7 years and 5 years' imprisonment respectively all sentences to run concurrently. 2. The Appellant appealed against all three sentences but, although he had filed no formal notice of abandonment of appeal, he intimated upon the appeal that he did not wish to proceed with his appeal upon the charges (a) and (c) above. Since he was unrepresented we permitted him, despite the absence of notice, to abandon his appeal against sentence upon those two charges. In the result we were left with an appeal against the single sentence of 7 years' imprisonment for possession of dangerous drugs for the purpose of unlawful trafficking. We were of the view, shared by Mr. Macdougall counsel for the Crown, that that sentence was somewhat disproportionate to the sentence of 5 years' imprisonment imposed for the more serious charge of doing an act preparatory to the manufacture of a dangerous drug and that the two sentences might well have been inverted. We were however limited to a consideration of a sentence of 7 years' imprisonment which we considered to be high both in relation to the sentence of 5 years' imprisonment imposed upon what we had called the (a) charge but also in relation to the not minute but certainly not considerable quantity of dangerous drugs involved. Accordingly we allowed the appeal, set aside the sentence of 7 years' imprisonment and substituted for it a sentence of 5 years' imprisonment which, like the original sentence, was to run concurrently with the two sentences of 5 years imposed upon the (a) and (c) charges. Representation: Appellant in person Macdougall for Crown/respondent |