THE GUARDIAN
cutting dated 24 NOV 1973
19
Britain cannot send back Hongkong policeman
The British Government By MARTIN WOOLLACOTT has abandoned efforts to find
be
7
Evidence so that a charge valid under British law could a legal way of returning the was the since Mr Godber had made against him."
been in receipt of income over Mr Jack Cater, Hongkong's former Hongkong police
and above his official salary he new Anti-Corruption Commis- officer Peter Godber to the might have committed an income sioner, will visit Britain next colony. Ex-chief Superinten- tax offence for which he could week and is expected to have dent Godber left Hongkong be extradited.
talks with officials at the last June just before an inves- It is these efforts which have Foreign and Commonwealth tigation into his assets-esti- now been abandoned, in the first Office, where he will no doubt case because the introduction of be told (if he does not already mated at over £300,000
was due to begin under the the retrospective principle into know) that the lawyers have British law was regarded as reached a dead end on the colony's Bribery Ordinance. "unhealthy." Mr Anthony Royle, Godber case. He is also due to The ordinance lays down that Parliamentary Under-Secretary meet here his new Director of any Government servant whose of State at the Foreign and Operations, Mr John Prender- assets or income exceed his Commonwealth office, reportedly gast. official salary can be called on stated this bluntly at a recent Mr Godber's son, answering to explain the additional meeting of the Hongkong the telephone at his father's wealth, and if he fails to do Parliamentary group.
home last night, said that his satisfactorily, can be sent to Mr James Johnson, Labour father was no longer speaking prison.
MP for Hull East, and a member to the press and could not com Chief Superintendent Godber, of the group, said yesterday: ment on any development. a veteran Hongkong policeman "Altering the Fugitive Offenders who held a number of import- Act, in the opinion of the ant posts in the force, was given lawyers, would not only be an seven days' notice of the inves- extremely difficult thing to do, would be a rather tigation. During this period he but it
development. It left the colony, slipping through unhealthy Kai Tak airport immigration looks as if the only way Godber controls and boarding a sche- will go back is if someone in duled flight to Britain..
Hongkong should turn Queen's
caused an
His departure uproar in Hongkong and led to the appointment of Sir Alex- ander Blair-Kerr, the Chief Justice, to inquire into the ease with which Mr Godber left Hongkong, and into corruption in the colony. Sir Alexander's report, in turn, led to the set- ting up of a new Anti-Corrup- tion Commission.
Mr Godber, meanwhile, had been living quietly at a cottage near Rye in Sussex with his wife and son. The Fugitive Offenders Act, which covers extradition between Britain aud the Commonwealth, could not as it stood be applied to him, since it lays down that the only extraditable offences are those which are also offences under British law. Britain, of course, has no legislation similar to the Hongkong Bribery Ordinance.
But, under pressure from the Hongkong authorities and pub- lic opinion in Britain, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office called in legal advisers to work on methods of returning Mr Godber to the colony to face the investigation he had avoided. One idea was that the Fugitive Offenders Act might be am- mended to include offences under Hongkong law and made to apply retrospectively, repug. nant though this would be to British legal tradition. Another
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