The facts of the case were straightforward. On 22 December 2013, he and the 2nd defendant, a 19-year-old female, Mok Po-yee, were seen by Customs officers queuing together at the Qantas check-in counter in the Departures Hall at Hong Kong International Airport. They were subjected to a random search of their luggage. In the false bottom of the 1st defendant’s suitcase were found 10 packets of the drug 'Ice' which were the basis of the charged offence of which he was convicted.
The 2nd defendant was found to possess a similar quantity of drug in her suitcase. Both the 1st defendant and 2nd defendant were intending to transport the drugs into Australia. The 2nd defendant had, before their joint trial commenced, pleaded guilty to trafficking in 1.90 kilogrammes of the drug and gave evidence against the 1st defendant.
So far as the 1st defendant is concerned and guided by the judgment in Abdallah, I take a starting point of sentence of 24 years’ imprisonment. Given the international element involved in the offence, a further enhancement is required. I do not intend to enhance the sentence by the whole 2 years referred to in Abdallah. Even appreciating that the offence is committed by the act of possession for the purpose of exportation, the reality is, here, that exportation did not occur, and for that reason, though perhaps not completely in accordance with strict principle, I propose to enhance the sentence by 1 year only to one of 25 years’ imprisonment.
There is no material mitigation and the defendant is sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.
So far as the 2nd defendant is concerned, I again take an initial starting point of sentence of 24 years’ imprisonment. That is enhanced by 1 year to reflect the international element of the offence for the reasons I have given, resulting in a final starting point of sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment.
The 2nd defendant’s plea of guilty to trafficking in the drugs in the suitcase warrants a one-third discount. Her giving of evidence would normally warrant that discount being increased to one of 50 per cent. In the course of her evidence, however, Mr Percy for the 1st defendant raised matters which considerably challenged her veracity generally and raised a grave suspicion that she had previously trafficked in dangerous drugs to Australia and had, contrary to her denials, acted on occasion as a recruiting agent for dangerous drug trafficking by searching on WhatsApp for people willing to smuggle what she euphemistically called ‘diamonds’ to Australia.
Nevertheless, I am satisfied by their verdict that the jury may well have accepted the more relevant parts of her evidence to the effect that the 1st defendant well knew that they were smuggling dangerous drugs, or at least she was smuggling dangerous drugs into Australia rather than diamonds, as was his defence.
In my view, it would be only in the clearest of cases where a witness such as the 2nd defendant plainly and deliberately lied on important issues in a case that the witness would lose the whole or any part of the discount normally allowed such witnesses. Her evidence did not reach that point.
Accordingly, I will allow her a full discount of 50 per cent for her plea of guilty and her giving of evidence at the 1st defendant’s trial. I do not allow her any further discount for the birth of her child whilst in prison. In my view, that, for serious offences such as this, is not a mitigating factor.
That results in a final sentence of 12 years 6 months’ imprisonment.