100
37.
jacket. 20
MacLennan then went down to the Armoury. Li recalled that MacLennan was wearing a Europe
tyle
38. Police Constable 8830 remembered the call from Sgt. Li the Duty Officer. A few minutes later, he saw MacLennan at the counter. The counter could be described as a cubby-hole with a door measuring some 2′ × 2′ and the constable attending the counter, unless he was very short, would have to stoop slightly to see who was on the other side. MacLennan called out “Good morning" in Cantonese and produced his warrant Card. PC 8830 looked through the cubby-hole. He recognized MacLennan, whom he had seen in the Station Compound once before and was told by the constables in charge of Transport that he was a CID Inspector. PC 8830 handed over the Beat Equipment Register (Exhibit No. B5) for MacLennan to complete. According to PC 8830, MacLennan made four mistakes: (1) he put the time incorrectly as 0500 hours (in fact, it was pointed out to me, by the Handwriting Expert, Mr. Derek Davis, whose evidence I will later refer to, that under magnification, MacLennan had initially put down the time as 1800 hours); (2) MacLennan put his signature at the place reserved for the Issuing Officer's signature; (3) MacLennan put his signature in the return section of the register (which is only to be completed when an Officer returns the gun); (4) MacLennan put his initials in the return section on the eighth column (reserved for the Issuing Officer). The relevant page of the Beat Equipment Register is reproduced at Plate 1.
39.
Police Constable 8830 handed the register back to MacLennan and drew his attention to the fact that the correct time should be 0600 hours. MacLennan duly made the correction and returned the Register to PC 8830 who then proceeded to draw the gun. He found that there was no CID revolver issued in MacLennan's name (the CID uses a .38 S & W Special which had a short barrel), so he drew a .38 S & W which was usually issued to CID aides, i.e., personnel in the Uniform Branch transferred to the Detective Branch on trial. The revolver drawn by PC 8830 bears serial number 4894. He put the serial number down on the appropriate column of the register, filled in the date column and the rounds of ammunition (six in number) issued, and handed the revolver to MacLennan. MacLennan left immediately in the direction of the Station Compound.
40. If one were to use an overhead bridge some 100 yards down the road from the Police Station, it would take about 15 minutes to walk back to the Ho Man Tin Service Flats. It would be much quicker if one were to cross the road and climb over the central divider, if traffic was sparse. It would take about five minutes to reach the Service Flats that way. Traffic would be sparse early in the morning, so probably MacLennan took the shorter route.
E. EVENTS BETWEEN 6 A.M. AND 9 A.M.
21
41. Miss Sandra Hills, resident of Flat 610B, the flat two floors directly above MacLennan, woke up with a start early in the morning on 15 January 1980. She recalled: "I do not know what awoke me. Immediately I awoke, I heard a sharp bang. My immediate reaction was that it was a drunken person, returning to the flat, who was letting off fire crackers. This first bang was followed by further bangs, similar to the first bang but I cannot say how many. I looked at the clock and to my recollection, it said: 'six something"." Miss Hills thought that her window might have been slightly opened. She assumed the sharp bangs came from someone trying to close the window, as she knew from experience that one had to slam the window hard to shut it properly. She then continued to sleep.22
42.
One Mrs. O'Connor, resident of 406B, four doors away along the same corridor and on the same floor as MacLennan's flat, thought she had heard loud noises the preceding evening, i.e. before MacLennan drew his revolver.
43. An experiment was conducted on 28 April 1981 by Major C. Mead, Ballistics Expert. At about 6 a.m. that day, Mr. Cimino (Ballistics Officer of the Police), and Mr. Burton (Solicitor of F. Zimmern & Co.), went to Flat 410B with Major Mead. Mr. Cimino had with him police revolver 4894 loaded with a number of live rounds. Major Mead then went to Flat 610B. By a signal communicated by radio telephone, Major Mead invited Mr. Cimino to fire five shots from revolver 4894 into a number of telephone books. Major Mead heard five sharp bangs, which were recorded on tape. The same procedure was repeated at Flat 406B and a similar recording was made. Major Mead heard no noise at all and his recording was therefore silent.2
23
44.
It will be seen that the Pathologist, Dr. Wong Kin-ming, put the time of MacLennan's death between 6.30 to 7.30 a.m. In addition, it was proved conclusively that the bullets found in MacLennan's body were in fact fired from revolver 4894. In the circumstances, I find as a fact that the bangs heard by Miss Hills were the sounds emitted by the discharge of revolver 4894. It follows that Mrs. O'Conner could not have heard the sound of discharge of revolver 4894. The noise she heard must be quite unconnected with the death of Inspector MacLennan.
20 See Li Chiu-nam's evidence at Transcript pages 10072-10073.
The time on the suicide note, namely, 0610 hours, would be consistent with MacLennan having taken a quick route back to the flat. See Sandra Hills' statement of 24 January 1980.
21
22
23
See Major Mead's evidence at Transcript page 10950.