16-year-old is jailed for 41/2 years, with a longer term deemed an unlikely deterrent
A judge yesterday jailed a 16-year-old drug trafficker for 41/2 years, saying his extreme youth warranted a lenient sentence and that a heavier punishment was unlikely to serve as a deterrent.
'I doubt very much there [has been] a single incidence [of] a drug trafficker being deterred by heavy sentences on young, street-level offenders they may have recruited. I doubt an average drug trafficker really cares very much what sentences [are] really imposed on persons employed by them,' Mr Justice Michael McMahon told the Court of First Instance.
'In those circumstances it is somewhat artificial to suggest by sentencing a very young drug offender to full weight could have deterred those who recruited them into drug trafficking. Such an approach may result in unfairness.'
Mr Justice McMahon made the remarks in passing sentence on Tsang Sai-fan, who a jury had found guilty of trafficking in 33.47 grams of Ice.
Tsang, now 16, was arrested last October in a Shamshuipo flat he shared with others.
He was 15 years and two months old at the time of the offence.
