2/
I think that the ACC will fail and not necessarily through any inadequacies on the part of its directors. Confidence of the public is the crucial factor, as is also confidence of honest civil servants. The lack of confidence in Hongkong Government organs must be fully apparent from the local and judicial Blair-Kerr inquiry to which came forward no official below the rank of Departmental Head and City District Officer and only two members of the public. This surely must indicate the honest official's and the public's lack of trust in both judiciary and government. Mr Cater has already been seen placing great emphasis on the importance of public cooperation. I venture that the ACC is already preparing its excuses for a failure that will come but will be the result of the Hongkong Government's suppression of evidence and failure to take corrective action since at least the end of
1962. Latent distrust in the Hongkong Government exists and there is as yet no reason why either public or honest civil servant should have any more confidence in the ACC than they had in the police ACO. I venture that too many people who acted on the basis of untried trust in the ACO and Hongkong Government have had cause to regret that mistake. Certainly I have.
Nevertheless I would not wish to appear small-minded over this. I would like to see the ACC work, not with any thought for the Hongkong Government but with concern for people who have suffered and might still suffer from abuses fostered by graft. In spite of my reservations (I can hardly see the ACC finding that former Governor Sir David Trench condoned suppression of evidence of organised police graft in 1965), I will earnestly consider how I may assist the ACC. Quite probably in due course I will supply to it, through you as my MP, a statement restricted to the primary evidence of police graft which I have. This would be an act of faith on my part rather than one of intelli- gence, having in mind the previous Hongkong Government 'inquiries' which suppressed evidence with blessing from the highest levels and, of course, the ramifications of my case which I have outlined to you.
As you rightly point out, the ACC would have to concentrate on the corruption aspects of my case, There remain, therefore, the wider matters of adminis- trative abuse which led to my discharge and which since 1965 have been immediately a responsibility for the British Government rather than the Hongkong Government. To set in motion a process whereby these matters can be examined I would therefore ask you, as my MP, to have from the British Govern- ment a statement as to how it can accept as "full", "proper", "thorough" and "adequate" the two internal police inquiries of 1963 and 1965, having in mind (a) that the 1963 inquiry suppressed evidence of maladministration at the then Police Training Contingent by among other devices (1) interfering with my statement (2) not taking from witnesses full statements of truth (3) failing to examine named witnesses who should have been examined (4) preventing one officer from making the statement which he wished to make; and (b) that the 1965 inquiry suppressed evidence by neglecting to examine the complainant and principal witness, myself, to obtain evidence to support his charges of organised police corruption, maladministration and suppression of evidence.
I would appreciate it if, as my MP, you would expedite the securing of this statement. It is now some ten years since I first engaged in this problem, in the public interest and in pursuit of my obligation to do my duty without fear of or favour to any person. I am now 32, very tired of these matters which to date have cost me my career which I loved, my livelihood and pension prospects of which I have need, and my reputation for which I had regard, and I now continue being put to cost and effort trying to have them set right. Young British police officers in Hongkong in the 1960s took on a most immediate problem and dealt with it as best they could under the circumstances. They did not hide behind legal niceties or turn their faces away, those that confronted the graft conspiracy that is, and for their pains were put to much personal cost and hardship and unhappiness. Their and my view was that the
..OVER/