DPP v Hoang Nam Duong
[2013] VCC 2066
•4 December 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No.
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| HOANG DUONG |
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JUDGE: | His Honour Judge Gucciardo | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 4 December 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Hoang Duong | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 2066 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords:
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms D. Tang | |
| For the Accused | Ms L. Dempsey |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Hoang Duong, you have pleaded guilty to trafficking in a drug of dependence in a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, a charge which carries a 25 year maximum. A commercial quantity is 500 grams when contained in a mixture with other substances. At the time of the offending you were 45 years old.
2 In November of 2012 you hired a car in your wife’s name and after a series of coded texts sent to and from an accomplice To, you travelled with him to Sydney. You travelled there with the intention of collecting illicit drugs and returning them to Melbourne. You arrived in Sydney on the morning of 8 December and awaited instructions. An unknown male at some point drove the hired car away without you and To in it and then returned by early afternoon and then the two of you and two other men drove to Kempsey and into the garage of a private dwelling. Shortly thereafter you and To drove the hired car back to Melbourne. The car was intercepted on the Hume Highway by police. You were in the passenger seat. In the boot of the car three large plastic bags were found with a white substance in each. You were in possession of two mobile phones. Each bag contained about a kilogram of methamphetamine at 90 per cent purity for a total of about 2.68 kilograms of pure methamphetamine. Despite this weight as seized, the prosecution fairly conceded that your culpability was to be understood by way of your expectation and belief as to the quantity which was to be transported by you, that being a ‘commercial quantity’.
3 It was also fairly accepted by the prosecution that you had been recruited as a courier to transport the drug and that on the evidence available you were to hand over the bags to someone else. You were not in the hierarchy of organisers but you had arranged the transport.
4 Your DNA was later found on a t-shirt in which the bags were found in the boot, but this does not add anything by way of aggravation in your participation as it could not be shown that you had in fact yourself placed the bags in the boot.
5 You told the police that To, your friend, had asked you to go to Sydney in return for some money, $1,000 or two and denied involvement in drug trafficking.
6 You were remanded in custody from 8 December 2012 to 11 April 2013 and therefore you have spent 125 days in detention which I will note in the court’s records. Your co-offender I note is to stand upon his trial in June of next year.
7 You pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and this means that I will accord an appropriate discount to your sentence which I will declare at the end. The plea means that the State has been spared a costly trial and many people will not have to be inconvenienced. I accept that your plea is accompanied by remorse and regret.
8 You are a person without prior criminal history and this past good record is a matter I take into account. However it is also true that the previous good character of a courier is a feature which is of value to those who recruit them so the value of this aspect must be qualified somewhat. Similarly the role of a courier is limited in terms of the role played in the overall scheme of drug trafficking and it may carry a more limited moral culpability than those who have recruited you and who are the organisers of the trafficking, however the movement of drugs is at the heart of trafficking and so couriers play a valuable and indispensable role within the mechanism of trafficking. I take each of these aspects into account.
9 A statement was tendered by a detective attached to the Victoria Police Drug Task Force which outlined the pricing of methamphetamine when it is sold on the illicit market. It is sufficient to say that the drugs you transported were very valuable.
10 You are 46 years old and you were born in Vietnam the ninth of 13 children. Your mother died when you were ten, your father more recently. Your country was invaded when you were 12 years old and by the age of 16 you escaped by boat. After three days at sea you arrived at a camp in Malaysia. Later you were accepted into Australia. You were schooled in Sydney until halfway through Year 10. You then left school to work in the family business but your English is still poor. You had secured work as a maintenance man in a large hotel but you lost that job after a serious head and back injury in a car accident but you went back to work for your older brother, sewing garments at home and you did that for a number of years.
11 Overall you have a positive work history which is to your credit. Unfortunately having bought a family home with the fruits of your work, it had to be sold by 2011 as both you and your wife succumbed to gambling. You owed more than $400,000. Before that you had also worked as a forklift driver and you had managed to raise a family.
12 Your downfall involved losing the house but eventually it also meant that you resorted to drugs, and this lifestyle eventually meant the effective breakup of your family. You have three children aged between 19 and 14. They are understandably angry with you for good reason. It will take a great effort to repair those relationships.
13 Your sister and brother in law run a fish and chip shop and you worked there after you were bailed. When you are eventually released I was told that you will recommence a life in the ACT and endeavour to reconnect with your children.
14 Since you were bailed you have worked steadily, reconciled with your wife and you have stopped drug taking and avoided gambling. This together with your work history augers well for a crime-free future so if certain aspects of your life coalesce positively you may have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation and a crime-free future. I take all these matters into account, particularly your work history as indicating your capacity in this regard.
15 You are currently naturally anxious and depressed at your predicament and the prospect of reclusion. You will be absent at critical years of your children’s lives. They and your wife intend to remain in Canberra so that your period of imprisonment will be experienced in relative isolation and I take this into account.
16 I have received a number of letters written by members of your family on your behalf. I have taken these into account. Your younger sister Mai, eldest brother Van, your son Andy have all written of your regret and remorse expressed by you, of your anxiety and of the time for reconnection with family whilst on bail awaiting sentence.
17 They are all concerned about your mental health and the prospect of time in custody. I accept that your absence will have a negative impact on your family and your children in particular. This responsibility is yours alone and it is reflective of the punishment which the court must impose.
18 Drug trafficking is an insidious and evil trade which damages lives and families and often the lives of young people. The community must be protected from such damage and the court must denounce such behaviour in the strongest and clearest fashion to indicate to like-minded people that this behaviour will receive stern punishment. In my view, your prospects of rehabilitation are probably good. I consider that specific deterrence must be sensibly moderated by an appropriate sentence.
19 I also received drug screens for 6 November to show that you were drug-free on that day. Hopefully that will remain the case into the future. You are currently on some medication for depression and you are also Hepatitis C positive. I take these matters into account in considering your punishment which must be immediate incarceration, and the effect that these matters will have on the actual length of the sentence.
20 Would you mind standing please.
21 On trafficking in a commercial quantity of methylamphetamine you are convicted and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. I fix a non-parole period of two and a half years. I declare that you have served 140 days by way of pre-sentence detention. But for your plea I would have sentenced you to five years with a non-parole period of three and a half years.
22 I will order the disposal of items listed in the schedule to the order, and I will order that your biological sample which was gathered at some point prior will be retained for retention on a database. I have signed those orders. You can remove Mr Duong, thank you.
PRISONER REMOVED
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