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Cliff Buddle

A HIGH Court judge said yesterday he was prepared to sacrifice the best years of a teenagers' life to save others from becoming involved with killer drugs.

 Lam King-chung, 15, faces 12 years in jail after admitting running drugs in exchange for free burgers and amusement games.

 But Mr Justice Yeung said: 'It is better for one young man to waste his life in jail rather than many other young people getting hooked on this habit.'   Lam, who had never been in trouble before he went to amusement centres 'for fun', looked frightened as he peered through the bars of the dock.

  His mother wept in the public gallery when he admitted trafficking in 214 grams of heroin worth more than $382,000.

  Mr Justice Yeung told the boy: 'People in this evil business prey on the stupidity or ignorance of young people in committing these serious offences.'   But an example had to be made of children who deal in drugs, he said.

  Lam told police he began dealing in heroin at the request of a man he met in an amusement arcade.

  The man, who has not been caught, would pay for him to play on the amusement games and also bought him hamburgers.

  Lam was also given $500, a fraction of the value of the drugs he was caught with.

  Mr Justice Yeung said the guideline sentences for trafficking in more than 200 grams of heroin, before mitigating factors were taken into account, were more than 12 years in jail.

  He told Lam: 'I know that at the time of the offences you were not yet 15 years of age.

  'It is indeed very difficult for the court to consider and to impose the appropriate sentence on a young offender for such a serious offence.'   It was sad that drug trafficking among young people was becoming prevalent, Mr Justice Yeung said.

  'It takes little imagination to come to the conclusion that you have been made use of by others,' he told the teenager.

  But a clear warning had to be sent out to other youngsters to warn them not to get involved with drugs, the judge said.

  Mr Justice Yeung told Lam: 'If the court were to impose an extremely lenient sentence because of your young age that may result in sending out the wrong signal to others.

  'This court must emphasis that anyone dealing with drugs must expect to be dealt with severely.

  'It is only hoped that with such deterrent sentences people, irrespective of their age and background, will be discouraged from engaging in this business,' Mr Justice Yeung said.

  The judge agreed to a request by defence counsel Freddy Woon to adjourn the case for background, training centre and detention centre reports to be prepared.

  After the hearing, Mr Woon said Lam had previously been 'a good boy' who looked after his family and generally steered clear of trouble.

  Prosecutor Harish Melwaney said Lam was stopped by police as he walked past a video game centre in Ngau Tau Kok on June 21 last year.

    The boy tried to run away and was arrested after a struggle. Officers found drugs in a bag he was carrying.

   He led them to another consignment hidden in his bunk bed at home.

  Priscilla Lui, director of Against Child Abuse, said although deterrence was particularly important, more attention and manpower had to be directed towards education, prevention, and rehabilitation.



Judge set to jail drug boy as deterrent