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Enclosure 2.
.900 P Y.
sir,
Chambers,
486
Supreme Court House, Hongkong,
26th. August, 1907.
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I have the honour to call Your Excellency's attention to a very important matter in connexion with the pre- -paration of criminal cases for the Assizes by the Police. The question has long been in my mind, but I have been waiting for a favourable opportunity to report on the matter: such an opportunity occurred at the last Assize. The opinion I have formed after over two years experience is that the cases do not come up to the Assizes as completely prepared as they should be. That I have to say is not intended as a criticism of the police, as I think they do their work with zeal, and a great deal of discretion and ability; it is rather a suggestion for
improving the system under which they work.
2.
The difficulty under which the police labour in preparing cases for trial is that they are not all thoroughly conversant with the law of evidence, nor are they always fully alive to the importance of facts: the result is that sometimes mistakes are made, and often facts which are of importance in the case are overlooked because they xx may have x appeared to be trivial to the officer in charge of the
case or have been inadvertently ignored.
3.
I have constantly noticed these slips in the cases at Assizes, and last week there were two, which will
by some serve as oxamples of my meaning. In the murder case oversight there was no evidence as to what clothes the prisoner had on when he was arrested. A small but important piece of #vidence corroborating the story of the eye-witness was thus not forthcoming. In the other case the sergeant who had taken down the complaint of the man who had been robbed was not called,
but
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