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PART V PERSONS INVOLVED

the 7th, had been sent on the 6th or even addressed to the young demonstrators whom she met that afternoon outside Mr. BERNACCHI'S office matters might have! taken a different course we cannot say; though we think it very doubtful. The fact remains, however, that, at this stage, she did nothing, and when, later in the evening, she came out of the Princess Garden Restaurant and saw a crowd of youngsters some 15 strong, carrying a banner which she thought read 'Support Mrs. ELLIOTT', who were marching south in Nathan Road in a very rowdy manner looking, she told us, as if they could become violent, she made no attempt to dissuade them but got into a taxi and headed for home; northwards up Nathan Road where, at about 10.15 p.m. near Gascoigne Road, she passed a police vehicle and its crew, who were being stoned, and found the highway littered with stones: a sorry outcome of a campaign which, even if well-intentioned, seems in the ultimate analysis to have produced unfortunate results.

327. Nevertheless, although one may properly expect individuals to learn from individual errors and may hope that an error, once recognized, will not be repeated, we have little doubt that the community at large and the Government will find it more profitable not to dwell on whatever evanescent individual errors led or contributed to the riots but to concentrate attention on the matters men- tioned in the concluding chapters of our Report.

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CHAPTER 2.

DEMONSTRATORS AND RIOTERS

328. For the purpose of determining the relationship between the earlier demonstrations and the subsequent disorders we have endeavoured to trace as accurately as we can the individual paths pursued by the more prominent amongst the earlier demonstrators in so far as these have been disclosed by the evidence before us. From SO we were unable to get testimony. He decided to turn his appearance before us into an exhibition and refused to take an oath because, he said, of the lies told by others when under oath and no oath was necessary for him. But, as he seems to have played little or no part subsequent to the afternoon of 6th April, we may not have been deprived of evidence of any great value. Two stand out amongst the other demonstrators, RAGGENSACK and LO Kei, and their activities are worth following in some detail as are, we think, also those of LEE Tak Yee, AU YEUNG Yiu Wing and HOR Wan Wah. Evidence of their movements came mainly from themselves and was by no means entirely reliable; LO Kei in particular appeared to have little or no regard for truth or consistency and his testimony was frequently in conflict both with itself and with that of more reliable witnesses. Moreover, a number of these witnesses had been together in Chi Ma Wan Prison for some time and had discussed these matters extensively amongst themselves. Their evidence gave the impression of being coloured by such conversations; but, making allowance for these and other distortions and inac-

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