IN CONFIDENCE
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
จา
HONG KONG
Enter
44
п
Gay
17.12.70
& detin time.
En
9th
17
December 1970
Dear Michael,
(32%
44/E
ewing
En.
Please refer to your letter HK K 1/20 of
the 20th November, 1970, concerning E.D. Dodgson, the American who was recently acquitted on a charge of demanding money with menaces from B.0.A.C.
m
Mañi
I attach a photostat copy of a note on the case, prepared by the Senior Crown Counsel who conducted the prosecution, which gives the background and sets out the reasons given by the Court for the acquittal. The Director of Public Prosecutions has commented that when the case was set down for trial the evidence appeared to him to be sufficiently strong to support a conviction. I remain, though obviously not for quotation, of the same opinion. I am advised that there is no appeal
from an acquittal of this kind.
Tom's Swee
High Maman Worker
HKIL 1/20
E.O. Laird Esq., CMG, MBE, Hong Kong Department,
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London S.W.1.
IN CONFIDENCE
P
P
D. P. P.,
On the 20th September 1970 a typewritten letter was received by B.0.A.C. threatening to blow up two of its VC 10 aeroplanes if a sum of money was not deposited within 93 hours in a particular lavatory cubicle on the fourth floor of the Y.M.C.A. Building, Kowloon. The accused was arrested in that cubicle on 24th September. He had tampered with the lid of the cistern and thereby operated a warning device. He had not removed a packet of falze money placed in the cistern, and told the police that he was there to collect two bottles of beer he had placed in the cistern to cool on the previous day. No beer was found in the cistern. The accused had been under police surveillance for 24 hours before his arrest and was not seen to purchase beer or place it in the cistern. the evidence of police surveillance was rejected by the court as unsatisfactory. The accused held a United States passport and 229 lived on the 4th floor of the Y.M.C.A. for several mouths. The blackmail letter contained expressions more commonly used by Americans.
However,
Apart from these suspicious circumstances, there was evidence that the accused had borrowed a typewriter from a friend on or about 15th September 1970 and returned it to him the following day. Tests conducted at the Government Laboratories indicated that this was che typewriter used to type the blackmail letter.
Commenting on the evidence of the Government Chemist called to give evidence .concerning these tests the learned trial judge said
P
"Before admitting her opinion that it was a willion- to-one certainty that the typewriter, borrowed by the accused, had produced the blacknail letter, I had to be satisfied that she was an expert in typewriting. She said she had dealt with 12 cases of typwwriting in the year she has been engaged in forensic work, but only this one had come to Court. She had not studied the subject as a specialist matter. Further, when asked about a mechanical matter with regard to typewriter, she said, with some hauteur, "I am not a typewriter mechanic." In my judgment, she is not sufficiently experienced in the matter of typewriters and typewriting as to admit her opinion evidence as an expert witness."
ملاحة
It should be noted that forensic research into typewriting is relatively uncommon in Hong Kong and elsewhere. The Governzelt Chemiste who have given evidence on the subject in the past were available to conduct this aries of tests, and that for an expert witnesa ou any subject there must be a first occasion on which bis testimony is accepted as that of an expert.
In the absence of any further evidence against the accused. he was acquitted. Police enquiries have not revealed that any other person was connected in anyway with this threat.
Al Devskite
(A. P. Duckett)
Senior Crown Counsel
2.12.70.
19
EN CLAIR
HONG KONG TO FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
TELNO 840
UNCLASSIFIED 13.044+2
13 DECEMBER 1970
YOP COP
ADDRESSED FCO TELNO 840 OF 13 DECEMBER REPEATED VARIOUS POSTS STOP, I HAVE RESUMED THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIS GOVERNMENT
AS FROM 1837 HOURS LOCAL TIME ON SATURDAY 12 DECEMBER 1970 SIR D. TRENCH
DEPARTMENTAL DISTRIBUTION
HONG KONG DEPT.
PERSONNEL OPS DEPT.
PROT. & CONF. DEPT. G.I.P. DEPT. LIBRARY
COPIES TO:
U.N. DEPT. (4)
FFFFF
HKK1/20
1/20
Pe. puthiy
15/12
.