COURT: Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of trafficking in dangerous drugs contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.
On 27 July 2013, you entered Hong Kong from China at the Lo Wu Boundary Control. Hidden in your person were dangerous drugs in five pellets containing 143.09 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 102.28 grammes of heroin hydrochloride. When you were arrested and cautioned at the border, you told the officers that you had five pellets of white powder in your private parts.
The seized dangerous drugs had an estimated retail value of $117,619.
On the day in question, you had left Hong Kong at 12.42 pm at the Lok Ma Chau Border and returned approximately two hours later with the drugs hidden in your body, at 1458 hours. In your video-recorded interview, under caution, you admitted that you had financial difficulties and went to Mainland China to bring the heroin back to Hong Kong for a sum of $500.
You are 37 years of age, married, and have 25 previous convictions which have been incurred on four separate occasions.
Mr David Boyton, your counsel, has made a full and thorough mitigation on your behalf and I have taken into account all that he has had to say. He told the court that you were originally working as a saleslady, however, in 2013, you gave up your work because you wanted to assist your mother in raising money to remove an illegal structure at the rooftop of your home and therefore worked as a cross-border trafficker to earn fast money.
I note that this is your first trafficking offence and also first offence related to drugs. However, in 2001, you had previously been sentenced to the Drug Addiction Treatment Centre in respect of other offences.
Mr Boyton has also informed me of your fainting spells and in the last conviction seen on the record, he had represented you in the money-laundering trial in which you collapsed in the middle of the trial and, for that reason, the trial was adjourned for a lengthy period. He has informed me that you have had a brain scan at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in December 2013 but there appears to be nothing there that informs the court that you are facing any life-threatening illness. He has asked me to adjourn the matter for a further four to six weeks so you can go back to hospital for a further brain scan.
I have before me a very recent medical report from the Tai Lam Centre for Women which is dated 30 January and the conclusion from that report from the medical officer is that you were referred to Accident & Emergency of the QEH for frequent dizziness; however, you refused treatment and insisted on your discharge against medical advice. Other than dizziness, your overall health condition was satisfactory. As a result of the medical officer’s opinion that your overall health condition is satisfactory, I will not accede to your application to adjourn the matter any longer for report.
Another matter which Mr Boyton has highlighted is that you had provided a nickname of a person to the police and this person was arrested by another unit. I am informed by Mr Power for the prosecution that the arrest of this person was not as a result of your information or assistance. That person was arrested at premises, relying on information provided to another squad. In those circumstances, Defendant, this assistance to the police cannot assist you further in mitigation.
Turning now to the offence itself, Mr Boyton very correctly points out that the leading case for trafficking in heroin is that of Lau Tak Ming [1990] HKLR at page 270. The guidelines laid down there by the Court of Appeal for this amount of drugs lies in the bracket between 50 and 200 grammes where the sentencing range should be between 8 and 12 years’ imprisonment.
Defendant, you committed this offence shortly after you were released from prison for your last offence, approximately eight months later, though admittedly that was for a wholly different offence of money-laundering. You had gone to China knowing that you were going to traffick drugs. You deliberately went to China and returned within about two hours with the drugs hidden in your body.
Defendant, for this amount of drugs, I will take a starting point of 9 years’ imprisonment. This case involved cross-border trafficking. There is an international element to it and on the authority of Abdallah, I enhance the starting point by 6 months for the presence of this aggravating feature. The sentencing starting point is therefore 9 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.
The most powerful mitigating feature is, of course, your plea of guilty. In those circumstances, that sentence should be reduced by one-third and you are sentenced to 6 years and 4 months’ imprisonment.