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ALLAN Ellis
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Ellis speaks out for Police Commissioner
ORMER Hongkong Police Inspector Allan Ellis today slammed critics of corruption-fighting Police Commissioner Charles Sutcliffe.
Ellis, who claims he was pressured out of the Hongkong force for daring to expose corruption, said people did not appreciate the positive, determined and courageous role role then by Mr Sutcliffe,
In a letter to The STAR from London, Mr Ellis renewed his call for an external judicial inquiry to probe alleged corruption in the force.
Mr Ellis said he could trace Mr Sutcliffe's role back to 1963.
"At that time, as Assistant Commissioner Kowloon, he introduced 'shock squad' raids on vice, particularly drugs, in order to by- pass the perhaps too comfortable set-up enjoyed by some divisional and district vice and drug squads," said Ellis.
At I recall, he would personally summon an inspector and give him secret raiding instructions to operate almost instantly in areas in which the officer would not normal- ly be working. These raids were reputedly successful.
Dackbone
"In the intervening years I am not familiar with his record but I do know that he sought the advice of his inspectors, who are the backbone of the Force, considered that advice and acted upon it.
"Certainly since his appointment as Commissioner in 1969, Mr Sutcliffe has made his presence much felt by the graft conspirators.
"He transferred scores of rank-and-file CID back to the uniform branch. Many are said to have resigned. It is an old trick but not a dud one. He abolished the rank of Uniform Branch Staff Sergeant, the 'UB Major'. The 'majors' had a reputation, right-
ly or wrongly, of being key figures in the organisation of the collection and distribu- tion of graft.
All of this, and his other measures to strengthen his Force, took courage. Any man who upsets a comfortable little conspiracy is asking for trouble,
"And Mr Sutcliffe has been getting plenty of flak from the Hongkong press.
"There has been implied criticism suggesting that Mr Sutcliffe's priorities were all wrong because he was, in the light of the Godber case, putting his campaign against. graft before his campaign against serious crime. The man simply cannot win!
It is most tragic that the Commissioner who has been seen to face corruption rather than run from it is collecting the criticism that in truth belongs to his predecessors over the past decade. It is equally true for the Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose,
"He is known to have accepted the very serious problem on top of which he is sitting and to have decided that something must be done.
"Yet his administration is the one collecting the scandal passed on by his predecessors.
"If Hongkong is to get on top of its graft problem, that progress is due to the efforts of two men - ·Charles Sutcliffe, who set out to create a strong, respectable and honest force, and Peter Fitzroy Godber who set out to achieve quite different ends."
Mr Ellis said there were people who maintained the answer to the problem remains today what was ten years ago:
They seek an externally-constituted commission of inquiry to maladministration.
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He added: In Hongkong there is neither a great diversification of power nor effective system of public accountability. Legislative Councillors are appointed rather than clected and they represent traditionally conservative interests the interests of the civil service and the merchant houses and banks. They most certainly do not represent
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public opinion.
"As a result, burning public issues are not questioned or debated in that lavatorial annexe to Colonial Secretariat.
"As another result, official abuse is not questioned and corruption officials proceed on their merry course calm in the knowledge that little or no action will be taken against them as long as the 'right' men are in the top jobs.
"And exception to this rule has arisen in the cases of Sir Murray and Charles Sutcliffe.
Powder
"They have asked questions and found the answers not to their liking, and they have acted. As the result, Godber took a powder.
"But Charles Sutcliffe and Sir Murray will not be in control for ever. Mr Sutcliffe retires in some few months time and we do not know whether the man who may step into his shoes is a Sutcliffe or a Godber, and Godber did bamboozle his way to a very high rank.
"So a machinery has to be established to consolidate their successes after they are gone.
"As courageous, determined and honest as Charles Sutcliffe most certainly is, neither he nor the honest officers in his Force can deal with this problem without outside help.
That help can only come from the creation of an externally-appointed commission of inquiry. That is the way to reform the Royal Hongkong Police Force, and the Hongkong press would do better to support Charles Sutcliffe with magnanimity and to realise that cooperation between people with differing views but the same targets will achieve more in smashing the organised corruption conspiracy than will carping about cancelled newspaper orders and ill- advisedly cancelling them."
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