DPP (Cth) v Wu
[2016] VCC 141
•18 February 2016
| Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTIONCR -15-01918
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS (CTH) |
| v |
| LEUNG HANG WU |
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| JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE COHEN |
| WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
| DATE OF HEARING: | 15 February 2016, 18 February 2016 |
| DATE OF SENTENCE: | 18 February 2016 |
| CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | CDPP v Wu |
| MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2016] VCC 141 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---Subject: Sentencing; importing commercial quantity of methylamphetamine
Catchwords: Plea of guilty; arranging addresses and names for arrival by post of two shipments; intermediary role higher than that of a courier; Hong Kong citizen; good prospects of rehabilitation in Hong Kong.
Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) ss 16A(1), 16A(2); Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) ss 6AAA, 18
Cases Cited:Nguyen v R; Phommalysack v R [2011] VSCA 32; DPP v Okoka [2015] VCC 1961; Phillips v The Queen [2012] VSCA 140; R v Lam; R v Lam [2015] NSWCCA 87; The Queen v Pham [2015] HCA 39
Sentence:TES: 6 years 6 months imprisonment with non-parole period of 3 years 6 months; 244 days pre-sentence detention reckoned served.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms S. Lye | CDPP |
| For the Accused | Mr A. Lewin | Emma Turnbull Lawyers |
HER HONOUR:
1Leung Hang Wu, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug, namely methylamphetamine. The maximum penalty for this offence is life imprisonment, which is a very strong indication of how objectively seriously this offence is regarded by the Commonwealth Parliament on behalf of the Australian community. You are charged that you committed this offence between about 3 and 10 October 2014.
2The factual details are set out in the prosecution opening, which was tendered as Exhibit 1 and I shall not repeat all of its detail.
3In essence, you are a national of Hong Kong, who initially arrived at Melbourne Airport on 18 August 2014 on a flight from Vietnam. You entered Australia on a Hong Kong passport on a visitor visa that allowed you to stay for three months. About a month later, you opened an Everforex account and commenced sending money to Hong Kong. To open this account, you gave a residential address of 9 Tarakan Street, Ashburton. You provided your Hong Kong passport as proof of identity.
4In early October 2014, you answered an online advertisement to rent a bedroom at a residence in Gifford Road, Doncaster. You used the name “Henry” and a social network account name “HK Henry Seals”. You moved into that room at the Doncaster address, paying cash for your weekly rent, and you were known there only as Henry.
5On 6 October, you entered a Vodafone contract for a mobile phone number and provided an address of 35 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.
6Meanwhile, on 6 October 2014, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service officers at Melbourne Airport intercepted a FedEx mail article addressed to Raymond Wu at 9 Tarakan Street, Ashburton. It was described as “bathroom products, shower head sample”, but on further examination a crystalline substance was identified as concealed within it, and a presumptive test was positive for methamphetamine. The consignment was retained by Customs and transferred later to the Australian Federal Police.
7On 10 October, that is four days later, Customs officers at Melbourne Airport intercepted another FedEx mail article, the contents described as “external filter for aquarium”. It was addressed to John Wu at the Gifford Road, Doncaster address. The contact number was one of your mobile phone numbers. Anomalies with X-ray image led to further examination, and the parcel contained two aquarium filters, in each of which there was crystalline substance, which also tested positive on a presumptive test to methylamphetamine.
8Both parcels were subsequently examined and the purity of the drug contents tested. The first consignment contained methamphetamine totalling the equivalent of 770.5 grams pure. The second consignment contained methylamphetamine, the total net weight of which equated to 3194.7 grams pure. The combined weight of the two shipments was 3.965 kilograms of pure methamphetamine. The estimated wholesale value of this was between AUD$780 and $858,000, and the estimated street value was between approximately $2.97 million and $3.96 million.
9The threshold weight for a commercial quantity of this drug is 750 grams pure, so each of the two consignments was a commercial quantity. The first was only slightly above that threshold amount, but the second more than four times it, and the two combined totalled more than five times that threshold.
10You left Australia on 16 November 2014 on a flight to Vietnam. This was apparently because the three months of your visitor's visa was expiring. On leaving, you gave your address as one in Box Hill where you said you had been staying with a friend. You returned to Australia about 12 days later, that is on 28 November 2014, arriving at Perth Airport from Hong Kong via Singapore, again using your Hong Kong passport and this time with a working holiday visa. You gave a contact telephone number, being one of the two mobile phone numbers you had used on the previous trip.
11Apparently, a couple of days after your second arrival, that is the one at Perth, a Customs officer received a photograph of you from Perth Airport and identified a similarity between you and the social network account profile photo of Henry whom police were investigating as a result of the two drug consignments intercepted in October.
12About three months later, using the name Henry, you rented a room in an apartment in Spencer Street, Melbourne and the owner took a photograph of your Hong Kong passport for identification. You paid her in cash for a bond and one month’s rent.
13On 25 May 2015, a warrant for your arrest was issued, and on 19 June, Australian Federal Police officers attended the apartment in Spencer Street where they were when you returned. In your possession, they found your Hong Kong passport, a Chinese driver's licence, a room rental agreement in your name, two postage wrappings, and an Australia Post notification card in the name of “P. Wu”. You were arrested and found to have cash in your back pocket totalling $4,226.50 in Australian cash.
14You participated in a record of interview but declined to comment in relation to the allegations. You have remained in custody since then, that is since 19 June last year, for a total of 244 days which will count towards the sentence I impose.
15Your time in custody so far has further relevance to your sentence, because you were at the Metropolitan Remand Centre at the time of the disruptions there last June 30. As a result, your conditions on remand became very substantially restricted. There was initially a 24 hour lockdown, and then only very limited time allowed out of cells each day. You say that you remained under those conditions until 31 October 2015, when you were transferred to Marngoneet, where you concede that there has been no significant curtailment of normal conditions.
16I have no direct information from the prison authorities in this case as to the precise limitations on your conditions or their duration, but the prosecution does not dispute what you say about that, namely that for four months you were held in heavily restricted conditions.
17I take into account that spending four months in heavily restricted conditions will have made that much of your time on remand more onerous, and I shall allow some reduction in the total sentence and non-parole period to reflect that I regard that four month period spent in very restricted conditions as the equivalent of more than twice that period. I have effectively reduced your sentence and non-parole period by the difference between the actual number of those days, which will be declared reckoned served pursuant to s.18 of the Victorian Sentencing Act, and that notional equivalent of time.
18I turn now to your personal circumstances.
19You are now 28 years old. I am told that you were born and raised in Hong Kong, one of four children, having two older brothers and a younger sister. I am told that yours was a happy and stable family life in which both of your parents worked, and worked hard to support the family. However, when you were aged 13, your father died in a car accident and that left your mother having to raise and support four children, which was a financial struggle, and no doubt an emotional struggle for the whole family.
20You continued at school but left during Year 11, and started work to contribute to the family finances. Your brothers also worked part time. I am told that you were not in any trouble whilst at school, nor after that in Hong Kong, and you have no criminal history in Hong Kong and nor do any other members of your family.
21You worked as a hotel bell attendant in the hope of working your way up to more senior, and ultimately management, positions in the hotel and hospitality industry. I am told that you decided to come to Australia in the hope that you could work in the hotel industry in Melbourne to earn more money to assist your mother, and also set yourself up for a more sound financial future, whilst also gaining experience to enable progression in that industry when you returned to Hong Kong. You apparently have a fiancé in Hong Kong.
22I am told by your lawyer that when you first arrived in Melbourne, you had no intention of becoming involved in any drug dealings. The prosecution has no evidence that you did have any such intention when you arrived. However, I am told that you “fell in” with people who introduced you to drug taking, namely methylamphetamine, gambling and ultimately drug importation. This seems to have happened within six weeks of your first arrival. You apparently agreed to facilitate arrival of drug shipments through the post and were paid $10,000 per shipment.
23The prosecution's summary refers to you opening an account about a month after you first arrived with EverForex, through which you made three transfers of money to Hong Kong totalling approximately $5,800 between mid-September and early October 2014. The source of that money is not known to me, so I cannot determine that it was connected with the drug importation. Those transfers may have been transfers of legitimate money back to your mother or other family although you should not have been working on a visitor visa. It is said that you were working for cash while you were in Melbourne, although I am not sure whether that includes the time after your first arrival, or after the second, or both.
24What is relevant about the opening of this account is that you gave as your address the Tarakan Street, Ashburton address to which the first intercepted parcel of drugs was addressed.
25I have read the personal references provided about you. Two are from friends in Melbourne, named Hong Chong Wong and Kelly Wong, who both say that in the time they have known you, you have been a helpful and trustworthy friend, that they believe you are very upset about the charge and are very sorry for what you have done. They believe you have already learnt from your mistake in becoming involved. Neither of them seems to appreciate that you were involved in arranging two distinct consignments, but that is not a reflection on them. I gather that they are friends who have visited you in prison, which indicates that they have genuine concern for you. For your sake, it is to be hoped that they maintain their contact with you.
26I have also read letters from your mother and from one of your brothers, both of whom are still in Hong Kong. Both of these letters confirm your family background, the history of your father's passing away and the difficult time for the whole family and particularly your mother struggling after that in particular to financially provide for the family.
27I accept that you took initiative to help your mother both in jobs around the house and then going out to work to assist with the family income. I accept that you appeared to your family to be working hard with the ambition to rise in the hospitality field of employment, and that it was to earn more and gain more experience in the hospitality field that you came to Melbourne for what your mother thought was a working holiday.
28Your mother confirms that you kept in touch with her throughout your time here, and she became concerned when you told her that the majority of the friends you had made were addicted to gambling, and she made you promise not to do anything bad. She describes that when you told her about what she calls this incident, you were crying and begging her to forgive you. She was completely shocked and speechless and feels heartbroken having never seen or heard you cry even after your father's death. She describes you as remorseful.
29Your brother, Eddie, also confirms your active role in supporting your mother and siblings, quoting the tradition of Chinese people to observe filial piety. He also confirms or says in similar terms to what your mother says that you were crying when you told him about the incident, and very regretful. He too asks for leniency to allow you to have another opportunity to show that you can be a responsible, hardworking, caring and giving person.
30I accept that you are to be regarded as of prior good character, having been a responsible family member, hardworking, anxious for the opportunity to improve not only your own, but also your family's financial position, and with no prior criminal involvement. Unfortunately for you, that does not attract as much leniency for you as it might have done on other types of offences because higher courts, including the Victorian Court of Appeal, have made clear prior good character should not be given much weight in drug importation offences.
31I do take it - that is your prior good character - into account as relevant to your prospects of rehabilitation, and I am satisfied that there is every chance that on completion of the sentence that I impose, you will be able to and are likely to try to build a responsible life for yourself back in Hong Kong with the support of your family there. You will almost certainly be deported after being granted parole, that is deported from Australia, and your future in Hong Kong remains up to you.
32I turn now to the specific sentencing principles, which apply in your case. Section 16A(1) of the Crimes Act (Cth) requires me to impose a sentence that is of a severity appropriate to all of the circumstances of the offence. Section 16A(2) requires me to take into account a number of matters to the extent that they are relevant. Some of these have already been discussed and I shall mention only those further ones which do have relevance in your case.
33Further, for offences of importing drugs, a number of propositions have been laid down for courts as the focus for decisions on sentencing. The case of Nguyen and Phommalysack v R[1] summarises these, and I shall not set them out in detail, but discuss their application in your case.
[1] [2011] VSCA 32
34First, I must assess the nature and circumstances of the offence and consider your criminality in light of your involvement in the steps taken to effect the importation. Obviously the greater the importance of the role, the higher the objective criminality of the offending. Your role can be described as facilitating arrival or delivery of the imported consignments of the border controlled drug. As the drugs were imported by post, there was no person exposed as the actual carrier of them into this country. It is submitted on your behalf that as there is no suggestion that you organised the deliveries, nor that you were intending to be involved beyond the delivery stage of the consigned parcels, nor that you stood to share in the ultimate profits from the sale of the imported drugs, I should assess your role as at the bottom end of gravity for a person involved in importation of a commercial quantity of this drug.
35In my view, your involvement was not at the lowest possible level of criminality for such an offence. I take into account the fact that there were two separate parcels or consignments sent to two different addresses, both of which were established by you. You had moved into the second address in Gifford Street, then left that one before police came looking for you after interception of the second parcel. Your involvement extended beyond one single act, and continued over a period of at least two to three weeks. That is in contrast to a person who might be said to perform one single part of a drug importation such as to carry drugs on a flight into Australia and simply to deliver them immediately after arrival and play no further part.
36There is nothing to indicate that you were under any pressure to become involved, nor to stay involved for the second consignment. There is no information as to whether these arrangements were all done on your own initiative, nor whether you communicated directly to the overseas consignor of the drugs the address and name and contact phone number to whom they were to be dispatched. However, you must have been communicating to someone the details of the arrangements, because you were making those arrangements for the address, and the address and the name of the consignee needed to be communicated to the consignor.
37As is often the case in drug importations, the court does not know the roles of other people involved, and certainly does not know who might have had overall control or who might be making the ultimate profits. I can therefore only compare your role with the roles of participants in other cases insofar as they may compare with the level of seriousness of your involvement, as I see it in this case.
38I also take into account that the amounts of the drug were significant. Together the two parcels contained almost four kilograms of pure methamphetamine with a significant potential value. The total weight was more than five times the threshold amount for a commercial quantity, although I accept nowhere near the highest amounts which have been known to have been imported.
39It was submitted on your behalf that there is no evidence that you knew of the actual quantity of the substances to be imported and that I should view your guilt (and indeed this is the basis that you have pleaded guilty) to be based on you having been reckless as to the quantity that was to be imported rather than having directly intended to import a commercial quantity.
40I take into account that although you used different names to establish yourself at the different addresses, there was not a great degree of subterfuge or disguise of identity in relation to the use of phone numbers registered in your name, nor the use of your passport as identification. As to the name “Henry”, by which you were know at the Doncaster address, I note that your mother's letter calls you that, so I infer that it is an Anglicised version of your name, which you have used not merely for this offending.
41As I said to your lawyer during submissions, in order to give a fair chance for him to respond, I do not agree that your role should be assessed at the bottom end of seriousness for offences of this type. I accept that there is no evidence putting your role at a high level of involvement in this offence in that there is no evidence of your being involved in coordinating overall arrangements, nor arranging for other people to take different roles, nor in your standing to make or share in the ultimate profit from these consignments. Nevertheless, I regard as raising the level of seriousness from the very lowest level that you were involved in two consignments, having arranged two separate addresses to which they were to be dispatched.
42Further, payment of $10,000 per consignment or shipment, although not reflecting the ultimate profit for a consignment of a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, reflects that your role was valued above the most basic. Notwithstanding that there is no information about any other person involved and what he or she was to gain, I infer from the amounts that you were to be paid that you were engaged at a level where your role had considerable value to the overall operation. I also take into account that you stood to make considerable money from it at a personal level, even if not the ultimate profits noting that two consignments arrived within a week of each other and were to earn you $10,000 each.
43I conclude that the seriousness of your criminality is at the higher end of the lower range of seriousness for such an offence. I consider it as more serious in general terms than the role of a mere carrier or courier of one importation. Even with the limited scope of your involvement, there was, in my view, more sophistication and initiative required of your role in setting up the addresses and use of different names than the role of a person who merely conveys drugs from one point to another.
44Of course, I note that courts have often said that the role of a courier, a mere carrier, is nevertheless significant because without it the importation could not occur. I conclude from the relatively little I know about the overall arrangements for this importation that without your role, this importation overall could not have occurred because you were the person at ground level who arranged and communicated the addresses and name of the person to which they were to be sent.
45As courts have repeatedly said, the principle of general deterrence must be given chief importance in deciding sentences in cases of drug importation. Because of the difficulty of detecting importation offences and the great social harm that such drugs are known to cause, stern punishment must be imposed in almost every case to send the message to others tempted to engage in such offending, that they can expect stern punishment. The temptation of quick substantial reward in money terms for relatively short involvement must be recognised as being a very serious offence which will attract stern punishment. Further, involvement at any level in a drug importation offence must necessarily attract a significant sentence, or else the purpose of general deterrence will not be served.
46As I have already said, prior good character is generally to be given less weight as a mitigating factor than it might be in other types of offending. That means that your lack of prior criminal history and otherwise good character as described by your family does not attract the leniency which it might in other types of offending. However, I as I have already said, I do take it into account as relevant to your prospects of re-establishing your life on your release from prison.
47I have already mentioned that I have taken into account and reduced your sentence as a result of you having spent four months of your time in custody on remand in much more restricted conditions than would be usual on remand, and that having made your time more onerous.
48I also take into account that your time in prison so far and for the rest of your sentence is likely to be more difficult for you than for the average prisoner due to your being a very long way from your home and family. Your family are unlikely to be able to visit from Hong Kong, and were they to do so, not often. It will be difficult for you to keep in touch with them, and telephone contact with them will be limited by the expense of those telephone calls and very limited access to funds for that while you are in prison. You have some but few friends in Victoria, so visits and contacts with persons outside the prison are likely to be more restricted for you than for many other prisoners. It was originally suggested that a lack of ability to speak English would be likely to further isolate you in prison. However, I have taken that into account to a much lesser extent because it has become apparent that you do speak some English, so are not without all ability to communicate, and I am also aware that there are many languages spoken amongst the diverse prison population nowadays.
49Overall, I have allowed some mitigation for the burden of a substantial prison sentence on you as a result of isolation from your family and friends, who are in your own country.
50Your plea of guilty also entitles you to some leniency. Although not at the earliest possible opportunity, by which I mean that you initially declined to comment on the allegations to police and I understand originally offered to plead guilty only to one or more lesser charge, I accept that you did plead guilty well before disputed hearings were to occur.
51By your plea of guilty, you have acknowledged responsibility for your offending and I am prepared to infer from it that you feel remorse or contrition, which is also consistent with what is said in the personal references about what you have told your family and friends.
52Your plea of guilty also reflects your willingness to facilitate the course of justice. Being a Commonwealth charge, the prosecution submitted to me that I should not take into account the objective benefit to the community of what is called the utilitarian value of the saving of the time and cost of a trial, or for that matter a disputed committal hearing. I was referred by the prosecutor to a decision being handed down the very day I was hearing your plea by Chief Judge Kidd of this court in the matter of Okoka[2]. I have had the benefit of reading an unrevised copy of His Honour's reasons in the addendum to that decision in which he considered this issue. I respectfully follow what he had to say on that issue, although I have not been able to publish that. This court is bound to follow the Victorian Court of Appeal decision in Phillips v The Queen [2012] VSCA 140, which case was conducted some ten years after the High Court decision in Cameron v The Queen, the latter being the decision that the Commonwealth submits indicates that utilitarian value is not to be taken into account as mitigatory in Commonwealth matters.
[2]DPP v Okoka [2015] VCC 1961
53In the case of Phillips, it was not suggested that the case of Cameron excluded consideration of the objective utilitarian value of a plea of guilty as relevant in mitigation. I have therefore given that aspect of your plea some weight in addition to other already mentioned mitigatory aspects of reflecting remorse, acceptance of responsibility, and willingness to facilitate the course of justice. I also take that to be the course followed by His Honour Judge Montgomery in the case of Thomas when the matter was raised last year in a Commonwealth case, although I am aware that case is on appeal.
54Finally, to consider current sentencing practice for offences of importing a commercial quantity of drugs, a table of cases was provided to me by the prosecution and the summarised circumstances in each of them noted. I have read and considered the cases as summarised. It was acknowledged that that was not a great range of cases in number, and not all of them were specific to the drug methamphetamine, and also that most related to the role of drug couriers. This was apparently because the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions now considers that reference to appellate decisions only should be made in the circumstances, and that approach is based on what was said by the High Court in the decision of The Queen v Pham[3].
[3] [2015] HCA 39
55There was only one of those cases, the case of Lam[4], decided in New South Wales that involved an intermediary role of facilitating shipments by post. That case involved three consignments and that offender's role was more extensive and lasted longer than the evidence about your role reveals here. I therefore have taken the view that the 11 year head sentence imposed and upheld in that decision for Mr Lam is not of guidance as a comparable sentence and your sentence should be lower than that.
[4]R v Lam; R v Lam [2015] NSWCCA 87
56As I mentioned to counsel before commencing this sentence, I also looked at the sentencing statistics for this offence contained in the Commonwealth sentencing database. I did this with much caution, recognising that bare statistics do not reveal any of the detail, which is so important in assessing relative criminality and other aspects of aggravation or mitigation in each case.
57I note that the statistics of sentences imposed in Victorian courts reflect overall lower sentences than the total Australian statistics and accept based on the High Court decision in Pham, that I should not rely solely on the Victorian decisions. Although this is an intermediate Victorian court, it is important for consistency in Commonwealth matters that a view be taken of the overall sentencing practice throughout Australia on the same Commonwealth charges.
58The prosecution further submitted to me after I indicated I had looked at these statistics, that as the statistics include decisions from intermediate courts. The prosecution submits that they should not be relied upon as an indication of sentencing practice since the decision of the High Court in The Queen v Pham that indicates that it is the decisions of appellate courts that should be given consideration as to comparative sentences.
59I have therefore taken only as a very general view here, both those statistics on an Australia wide basis and the cases brought to my attention by the Commonwealth. Overall, I have decided that I cannot rely on either for close comparison as to the length of an appropriate head sentence or non-parole period to impose on you.
60As was conceded by your counsel, taking all of these matters into account, I could not be satisfied that any sentence less severe than imprisonment is appropriate. I regard general deterrence as the chief sentencing factor to send the message to others that engaging in this type of activity or involvement in the importation of commercial quantities of border controlled drugs will be met with stern punishment.
61I also consider that your sentence should reflect that your involvement was not at the lowest possible level of criminality for this offence although still in the lower range. I take into account in mitigation the factors I have already outlined and in particular your plea of guilty, your prior good character as it reflects on you having relatively good prospects of rehabilitation and establishing a responsible life for yourself on release from prison, and the burden of a prison sentence on you in isolation from family and friends and four months of which were spent in much more restrictive circumstances than usual.
62Leung Hang Wu, on the charge of importing a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, you are convicted and sentenced to six and a half years' imprisonment. I fix a non-parole period of three and a half years. I declare 244 days of pre-sentence detention as reckoned served and I direct that that be recorded in court records. That number of days will be deducted from both the head sentence and the non-parole period.
63I was asked to state what your sentence would have been if you had not pleaded guilty, but had been found guilty of this charge after a trial. The so-called statement under s.6AAA of the Victorian Sentencing Act is always artificial and in my view, more so here because two consignments of a commercial quantity of drugs have been included in the one charge and would not have been, or I cannot see how they could have been had there been a jury trial. Nevertheless, I state that had you been found guilty on one charge representing both parcels and the same total weight of pure methamphetamine and assuming that all other considerations including custodial conditions to date were the same, I would have imposed a sentence of ten years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of six and a half years.
64I do not know if any ancillary orders were being applied for.
65MS LYE: Just the forfeiture order, Your Honour.
66HER HONOUR: Do you have a draft of that?
67MS LYE: Not a draft. I understand that it is not necessary for you to endorse it or anything, but I can hand it up just to show you.
68HER HONOUR: Are you not asking me to sign an order?
69MS LYE: It is forfeiture by consent so you do not have to sign it, that is my understanding, it is between the parties.
70HER HONOUR: So do I order by consent?
71MS LYE: Yes, by consent, yes.
72HER HONOUR: But it does have to be part of my order or has there been an arrangement by consent? I am just trying to ask what I am - am I ordering it or not?
73MS LYE: There has been an arrangement by consent, you do not have to.
74HER HONOUR: I do not have to make an order?
75MS LYE: Yes.
76HER HONOUR: I will not make an order then.
77MS LYE: Thank you.
78HER HONOUR: That is an authorisation, yes.
79MS LYE: Yes.
80HER HONOUR: That can go back to the parties. If that is an arrangement reached outside this, I do not need to deal with it. All right, is there anything I have failed to cover and have I got anything wrong?
81MS LYE: Just by matter of semantics, just when the sentence starts, it is today.
82HER HONOUR: Yes.
83MS LYE: Yes, it is a Commonwealth thing.
84HER HONOUR: Yes, thank you for reminding me. The sentence I impose starts today and I have, of course, declared reckoned served the amount of pre-sentence detention.
85MS LYE: As Your Honour pleases.
86MR LEWIN: As Your Honour pleases.
87HER HONOUR: All right. I will have the court adjourned until tomorrow morning, but do you want the chance with the interpreter present to have your client stay so you can talk to him?
88MR LEWIN: I would appreciate that, Your Honour, yes, if possible.
89HER HONOUR: I will ask that Mr Wu be able to remain in the dock so that his counsel, with the assistance of the interpreter can talk to him for a few minutes. I will leave the court though for that to occur.
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