ANNEX
XATO XCR(74) 64
REPORT TO HIS EXCELLENCY, THE GOVERNOR
IN RESPECT OF CRIMINAL CASE NO. 86 OF 1973
CRIMINAL SESSIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT.
His Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong.
Sir,
CHAN Cheong-hing (aged 42 years)
I have the honour to report pursuant to Clause XXXIV
of the Royal Instructions that on the first day of November 1973
the abovenamed prisoner was convicted by a jury of the murder of
CHEUNG Shui-fa. The prisoner was accordingly sentenced to death.
The facts upon which the Crown relied in this case were contained in two statements made by the prisoner, one a statement
made under the caution soon after his arrest and the other made under
caution in answer to the charge of murder. Evidence was also adduced that immediately after the incident which took place at Room 908, Block 14, Chai Wan Resettlement Estate, the prisoner had gone to the home of his next door neighbour and had made a 999 telephone call requesting that an ambulance be sent to his house as he had had a
fight with his wife and that she had fainted. Ambulance and police personnel arrived simultaneously at the prisoner's home, but because of the fact that the prisoner spoke the Chiu Chow dialect the police officers who arrived at the scene had great difficulty in then and there discovering exactly what had happened as none of them were Chiu Chow speakers, but they managed to ascertain that the injured person whom they found lying on the floor of the prisoner's home either dead or unconscious was the prisoner's wife.
Madam CHEUNG Shui-fa was at once taken to the Tang Shiu Kin Hospital where she was certified "dead before arrival". Later
the cause of death was found to be due to a fractured skull and
injury to the brain.
The prisoner was taken to Chai Wan Police Post and was then handed over to a sergeant and a Detective Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department who escorted him back to his home. Again because of the language difficulty and the fact that