On 19 September 2014, the defendant pleaded guilty in the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap 134. He was committed to this court for sentence.
This morning, the defendant confirmed his plea and his acceptance of the summary of facts.
Briefly, the defendant was stopped at the North Point MTR Station on 1 April 2014 by the police as they found him to have acted suspiciously. Then, a search was conducted and the drug now particularised in the count, that is, 53.76 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 51.71 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride, was found in four plastic bags. These bags were inside the paper bag which the defendant was carrying at the time. The estimated street value of the drug was about HK$21,000.
The Defendant’s Background and Mitigation
The defendant is aged 24. At the time of the offence, he was living with his girlfriend and their two children. However, Mr Cheung for the defendant informed the court this morning that his girlfriend has already left him, therefore, his two children, now aged 1 and a half years and 9 months respectively, are now being looked after at Po Leung Kuk.
The defendant himself was born in Nepal and he was educated in Nepal up to secondary level. The defendant came to settle in Hong Kong in 2006. He then started working at the age of 17 as a delivery worker. At the time of his arrest, the defendant was working as a casual worker in a construction site, earning about $800 per day.
The defendant has been before the court on five previous occasions with a total of eight convictions. Four of those were theft offences and the rest were possession of a dangerous drug or possession of Part I poison. The defendant was last sentenced on 17 February 2014 to 2 weeks’ imprisonment for theft. In mitigation, it was said that the defendant only committed this offence for the reward of $1,000 per delivery. This was his first trafficking in a dangerous drug offence and he is now genuinely remorseful. Mr Cheung therefore asked for a lenient sentence to be passed on the defendant.
The Sentence
The tariffs for trafficking in “ice” were laid down in AG v Ching Kwok Hung [1991] 2 HKLR 125 and corrected in HKSAR v Capitania CACC 28/2004, 11 August 2004, unreported. For trafficking between 10 and 70 grammes of “ice”, a term of 7 to 10 years’ imprisonment is called for.
Recently, the above guidelines were revised to one of 7 to 11 years of imprisonment by the Court of Appeal in the case of HKSAR v Tam Yi Chun [2014] 3 HKLRD 691. However, as the new guidelines are only applicable to offences committed after the date of the delivery of the judgment, that is, 9 June 2014, and since the defendant committed the present offence on 1 April 2014, I will follow the old guidelines in sentencing this defendant.
Having considered the amount of “ice” involved and the facts of this case, I am going to adopt a starting point of 9 years.
The defendant pleaded guilty. He will receive a one-third reduction for that. In this case, other than the defendant’s plea, there is nothing which would warrant any further reduction in sentence.
The defendant is therefore to serve a term of 6 years’ imprisonment for this offence.