Director of Public Prosecutions v Sing Ho Chan and Hom Wong
[2013] VCC 1316
•17 September 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-12-01438
CR-12-01437
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SING HO CHAN HOM WONG |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE HAMPEL | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 6 September 2013 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 17 September 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Sing Ho Chan and Hom Wong | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 1316 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords: Sentence – Guilty pleas – Attempted possession of border controlled substance – 12 times commercial quantity – methamphetamine street value $24.8m – role – collecting and re-packaging drugs – motive – profit – HK nationals – isolation in custody – previous convictions – specific deterrence.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr A. Dhillon | Ms S. McGirvan |
| For Accused Sing Ho Chan | Mr M. Stanton | Ms U. Ebsworth |
| For Accused Hom Wong | Mr P. Marin | Mr J. Valos |
HER HONOUR:
1 On 6 February 2012 each of you, Mr Chan and you, Mr Wong, landed in Sydney on a flight from Hong Kong. You travelled around Australia over the next five weeks before arriving in Melbourne.
2 On 18 March a booking was made in your name, Mr Chan, at the Quest Apartments in Lennox Street, Richmond.
3 Six days later the two of you went to Australia Associated Retailers Limited in Burnley Street Richmond. You went there with trolleys and took possession of a consignment of four boxes which had been sent to Associated Retailers addressed to the attention of a Mr Lawrie Chan. Those boxes had been imported into Australia on 20 March, arriving on a cargo flight from Hong Kong. The boxes were examined when they arrived in Australia and it was discovered that concealed inside what appeared to be legitimate cargo, mainly toys, was a large quantity of methylamphetamine. In all there were 25 plastic bags containing the drug concealed in the four boxes in the consignment. Just under 25 kilograms of white powder was in the shipment and later forensic analysis showed that there was a nett quantity of just over 19 kilograms of methamphetamine. That means that the drugs imported were of a purity of somewhere between 75.8 and 78.2 per cent.
4 A controlled delivery was organised and a listening device was placed in the boxes along with substitutes for the drugs. It was clear that Mr Lawrie Chan, the man to whom the four boxes had been addressed, was expecting the delivery and was expecting it to be four boxes. Only two boxes were delivered initially and he told the person who delivered them, who unbeknown to him was an AFP officer posing as the delivery man, he expected another two boxes. As a result, the other two boxes were then provided and about 20 minutes after all four boxes had been delivered to Mr Lawrie Chan the two of you, Mr Chan and Mr Wong, arrived at the ARL premises.
5 You had a taxi and you asked the taxi to wait. Each of you was then seen leaving the premIses of ARL each with two boxes on a trolley. The taxi took you back to the apartment and as the listening device revealed, you immediately began to unpack them.
6 The listening device concealed in the parcels recorded some comments from one of you or both of you, it is not clear who was speaking or whether only one or both of you said these things, but which indicated a familiarity with the drugs on the part of the speaker and which also indicated that the other person was not expressing ignorance or surprise.
7 Amongst other things, there was reference to the amount being correct, some surprise expressed about the colour, suggesting a familiarity with what the colour normally was, and some suggestions about the process that would have to be followed in order to remove the colour.
8 By three o'clock, about half an hour after you had taken delivery of the boxes, Australian Federal Police entered the apartment. The four boxes were opened and the drugs had been removed and were in two locked suitcases which were in a cupboard in the bedroom by the time the police arrived.
9 You were wearing gloves, Mr Wong, at the time the police arrived and Mr Chan, you went to the bedroom and tried to prevent the police from entering it.
10 Neither of you was cooperative when interviewed. Mr Chan, you gave a false account. You denied knowledge of the content of the boxes. You said you travelled to the Burnley Street address with Mr Wong because you had been asked to do so by somebody you did not know in Hong Kong, in order to collect some toys and Chinese medicine. You said that you had been asked to take the Chinese medicine out of the boxes and hide them in the locked suitcases and that someone was going to later collect the Chinese medicine from you.
11 Mr Wong, apart from confirming that you lived in Hong Kong and that you had been staying at the Quest Apartment, you otherwise exercised your right to silence.
12 So it is that each of you has pleaded guilty now to one charge of attempting to possess a border-controlled substance in a commercial quantity and come to be sentenced by me.
13 It is clear, as both of your counsel acknowledged, that considerations of denunciation, just punishment and deterrence weigh heavily in the sentencing balance. This was a large scale importation. The quantity, just over 19 kilograms of methamphetamine is over 12 times the minimum amount constituting a commercial quantity.
14 On the agreed and accepted summary presented to me the estimated wholesale value of the drugs was between $6.9 and $8.1m. That results in a street value of $24.8m.
15 Neither of you has volunteered any information about your involvement in this large scale importation. The only evidence of your involvement comes from what has been able to be reconstructed of your movements from the time you left Hong Kong. Neither of you has volunteered any information about the identity of those you dealt with, of your role or your anticipated reward. It is of little assistance to compare your role with that of a courier. On the evidence before me you played an active role in moving a large quantity of an illegally imported drug from one place in Melbourne to another, unpacking and repacking it in its bulk form, probably for delivery to, or collection by, the next person in the supply chain. It is on that evidence and that factual circumstance that I sentence you.
16 There is no evidence that you were the principals and it is clear that you were well above the street level supplier. Neither of you is impaired by mental illness, other ill health or physical or intellectual disability. None of those matters can explain your involvement. Neither of you has suggested that you were threatened or coerced. Each of you through your counsel acknowledge that you were motivated by reward or gain. In other words, you were in it for the money. Those, who like you, participate for personal gain in large scale drug importation or movement of drugs once imported must appreciate that they will suffer significant punishment if caught.
17 Our borders are porous and the importation and subsequent movements of large quantities of pernicious drugs like methamphetamine is difficult to detect. The sentences therefore must act as a real deterrent for those thinking of involving themselves in such activity in the hope of profiting from involvement. This drug causes untold harm to people, not just to users but also to those much greater numbers of people who are affected by the behaviour of those who use ice. People affected include family members, friends, and strangers, that is family members and friends of the end users and strangers to them. They are properly to be regarded as the innocent victims of the crimes of violence and dishonesty or of the consequences of the waste of life which is the result of those who are under the influence of ice or who commit offences of dishonesty to get more money to pay for supplies or commit offences of violence when influenced by it.
18 You are both Hong Kong nationals. You, Mr Chan, are 50 and you Mr Wong, 29. Both of you express though your counsel shame for your involvement, or at least the detection and subsequent need to disclose your involvement to your parents. Each of you acknowledges that although your parents were poor they gave you what educational opportunities they could, and that you were as a result, well capable of holding down legitimate employment and supporting yourselves, and of contributing to your families' wellbeing.
19 Both of you express concern that you will be unable to care for your elderly parents who remain in Hong Kong during what is acknowledged to be the inevitable term of imprisonment that you must serve here. Clearly those matters were insufficient to deter you from taking part in this venture.
20 This was not impulsive behaviour. Each of you must be taken to have made a calculated decision to participate, and clearly each of you had ample time to consider whether you wanted to continue and to withdraw.
21 Each of you has previously served terms of imprisonment in Hong Kong. You, Mr Chan for dishonesty, and you Mr Wong, for possession of drugs. It cannot be said you were unaware of the consequences of serving a term of imprisonment on your families, particularly your parents, and it is clear that previous terms of imprisonment did not act as a deterrent so far as your decision to participate in this offence was concerned. For each of you this is clearly a much more serious offence than anything else that you have previously been dealt with for.
22 Each of you has pleaded guilty. You did so following a committal which was contested on the confined basis of whether it revealed that you were involved in the importation or in the attempted possession of the drugs. By reason of your pleas of guilty you are entitled to reduction in the sentence otherwise appropriate. I accept that although the pleas of guilty were not entered at the earliest opportunity that the time at which you entered them was the earliest reasonable opportunity, having regard to the negotiated settlement of the charges.
23 There is no evidence or remorse in the sense that that term was explained in Barbaro and Zirilli.[1]
[1] Barbaro v The Queen; Zirilli v The Queen [2012] VSCA 288 (30 November 2012).
24 I accept that imprisonment would be more onerous for each of you because you have no families here and no friends. You will have no one to visit you. You are also likely to be more isolated than many other prisoners because you have at present limited English although each of you has been applying yourselves to learning English better.
25 Each of you has undertaken a number of courses on remand, not just English but also vocational causes and behaviour-related courses and each of you has expressed an intention to continue to undertake courses that are available to you in custody and to try and make the best of your time in prison.
26 Although it is likely that each of you will be deported on your release it is clear that I must fix a non-parole period for you just as I would for a person with citizenship or residence rights.
27 I see no reason despite the difference in your ages and the difference in the nature of your previous convictions which are, as I have indicated, of limited nature and limited relevance to sentencing here, save that it means that you come before the court not as first offenders, to distinguish between the two of you in your roles, in an assessment of your own culpability and therefore in the ultimate sentence.
28 Sing Ho Chan, on the charge to which you have pleaded guilty you are convicted.
29 Hom Wong, on the charge to which you have pleaded guilty you are convicted.
30 You are each sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 10 years and I fix a period of seven years as the term you must serve before being eligible for parole.
31 I declare that each of you have spent 540 days in pre-sentence detention and direct that that be counted as reckoned as part of the sentence already served.
32 Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act I declare that but for your pleas of guilty I would have sentenced each of you to a term of imprisonment of 13 years and I would have fixed a period of ten and a half years as the time to serve before being eligible for parole.
33 The sentence commences today.
34 PRISONERS REMOVED
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