320
PRAYA MURDER TRIAL.
JURY FIND THE PRISONER
QUILTY."
་་
MIS-DIRECTION ALLEGED BY COUNSEL FOR THE
DEFENCE.
Considerable interest was shown by the Chinese public in the trial, which opened on March 20th, at the Supreme Court, of Leung Wo, ship's cook, indicted for the murder of Leung Yuk Tong, a member of the firm of Jack A. Tai, stevedores, who was shot at mid-day on the Praya on February 24th, and is generally supposed to be a victim of revenge for actions con- nected with the Seamen's Strike.
The presiding Judge was the Chief Justice (Sir Wm. Rees Davies). The Attorney-Gendral (the Hon. Mr. J. H. Kemp, K.C.) conducted the case for the Crown and Mr. F. C. Jenkin (instructed by Mr. G. K. Hall Brutton) defended.
The prisoner entered a plea of 'not guilty,' and a special jury "to ascertain whether he be guilty or not guilty" was empanelled forthwith. This consisted of Mr. H. W.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS & Mr. Jenkin: We do, in murder cases- as a rule,
Capt. Morgan admitted that it was pos sible he might have lost sight of the man when a pillar intervened, but, later, he said he did not believe he lost sight of bim at all. It would have been possible for two men to have run ahead of him and the man he was chasing and for one of them to throw a revolver into the garden.
Mr. Jenkin suggested to witness that three or four Chinese were in the vicinity of the ricksha and rushed across into Wardley Street.
[March 25th, 1922
The Judge asked, was the man run- ning alone the prisoner? The witness could not say.
After Mr. A. H. Barlow and Mr. Ho Cheuk had repeated the evidence they had given in the Police Court as to the finding of the revolver in the Bank Garden, the case for the Crown was closed.
ADDRESS FOR THE DEFENCE.
In opening his address for the defence, Mr. Jenkin remarked that the case had excited a good deal of feeling, owing to There Capt. Morgan: I did not see anybody. the labour troubles at the time.
were people who said that the man ought It may have been so then -I did not
to have been executed on the spot. The sight. see them and I am not defective in eye-jury, however, must not allow themselves
Witness was certain that there was no- body running on the pavement, unless they were behind him, but there might have been people running on the road.
During the examination of Mr. Pereira, who knocked down the running man, the Chief Justice told the witness: "I think your action does you credit, whether you struck the right man or not. You were right in assisting in the ad ministration of order."
Mr. Jenkin questioned the witness as
to be swayed by passion but must decide Mr. Jenkin also said that he had been criticised, according to the evidence. openly and covertly, for taking part in the case, but it was the duty of counsel, if he were retained, to do all he could for his client, within the ordinary rules governing the members of the Bar. If he had been assigned by the Crown, in- stead of being retained, he would have fought the case just as strenuously.
Bird (who was chosen to act as foreman), to what he would do if some one knocked vations, Mr, Jenkin said the case for the
Mr. A. S. Gubbay, Mr. W. B. Walker, Mr. W. Sinclair, Mr. H. S. Bennett, Mr. John Arnold and Mr. A. E. Crapnell.
him down without apparent excuse.
The witness replied that he would de mand satisfaction from his assailant.
The Chief Justice elicited that the wit- ness understood Chinese perfectly well and he was sure that the man he knocked down said nothing at all.
The Attorney-General prefaced his ac- count of the shooting incident on the Praya and the chase through Statue Square, with the arrest, finally, of the prisoner, by mentioning that the deceased was con-
On March 21st, the case for the Crown nected with Messrs. Jack A Tai, who was concluded in the trial of Leung Wo were concerned, during the strike, in who is indicted for the murder of Leung getting away three steamers belonging to Yuk Tong, on the Praya, on February the Ocean Steamship Co. The Attorney- 24th. General understood that the defence was that a mistake had been made in identity. The whole day was occupied in calling the witnesses whose evidence, given in the Police Court, has been so recently re- ported, very fully. It was noticed, by the way, that learned counsel were mak- ing great use of the Daily Press report to supplement the Police Court deposi-
tions,
The principal witness, of course, was Capt. David Morgan, master of the s.s. Kwongsing, who said that, walking along the Praya "in a brown study," he heard the crack of a shot and then saw a ricksha drop and its occupant fall out. A man who was within a few feet of the ricksha, and who had a wisp of smoke in front of him, ran away through Statue Square and up Wardley Street. Witness chased him and later saw him on the ground with a man standing over him.
In cross-examination, Mr. Jenkin elicit ed that, on the Praya, Capt. Morgan did not see the face of the man he chased. If this man had not run at once he would not have suspected him of firing the re-
volver.
Mr. Jenkin : I am going to establish out of the mouths of a number of Crown witnesses that there were a number of other Chinese running.
Mr. Jenkin asked Capt. Morgan what his brown study was about. Was he, like the rest of us, wrapped in contem- plation of the temporary beauties which now adorned Statue Square?
Capt. Morgan: No, I believe I was wondering whether I had won any money in the sweeps.-(Laughter.)
man on
Mr. Jenkin: Are you prepared to swear that you did not lose sight of this more than one occasion before he turned into Wardley Street?
Witness: You are cutting it too fine,
In the morning, before the hearing was resumed, Judge, jury and counsel visited the scene of the shooting and of the chase. The Court was again largely at tended by Chinese, who were searched by the police before admission.
A number of witnesses were called to
complete the Crown's case; to trace the finding of the revolver, for instance, and to record its passage from hand to hand "exhibit " in the until it became an
trial.
Mr. H. C. Resker. assistant manager of Taikoo Sugar Refinery, said Jack A Tai's were their coolie contractors. About February 1st some of the men supplied by the deceased, Leung Yuk Tong, threatened to strike. Deceased undertook to stop the strike and it was averted.
Mr. A. B. H. Phillips, chemist at Taikoo Sugar Refinery, spoke to being in telephonic communication with deceased in connection with the food supply to temporary labourers.
was
Having made these preliminary obser-
Crown would stand or fall by Capt.
The defence Morgan's evidence. that a mistake in identity had been made. Capt. Morgan-a man of 63 years of age had shown great pluck in taking up the chase in the way he did but Mr. Jenkin said he intended to show that Capt Morgan had mistaken his man. The crucial test of the Captain's evidence, Mr. Jenkin suggested, was his recollec- tions about Mr. Green. When first called he said Mr. Green was at the railings near the City Hall but now he said Mr. If Mr. Green was not standing there. Green were on a charge for an assault committed at the top of Wardley Street, how could he possibly be convicted on Capt. Morgan's evidence? Capt. Morgan said he identified Mr. Green by his face and his clothes, yet he put him in the wrong place. It was, therefore, quite possible that he put the prisoner-whom he could not recognise, either by his face or his clothes in the wrong place, also..
Mr. Jenkin also suggested that if Capt. Morgan once lost sight of his man during the chase his identification was of little value. He went on to say that Captain Morgan lost sight of the running man on three occasions-when he ran behind the pillars near the Praya, into Wardley Street; secondly, when Capt. Morgan was jumping over the obstacle of which he spoke, near the Statue; thirdly, when the man entered the part of Wardley Street between the Bank and the City Hall. Mr. Jenkin reminded the jlry thai when they visited the locus in quo, that morning, he drew their attention to the fact that the temporary pillars blotted out Wardley Street from the spot where he and the further cross-examined by Mr. Jenkin.
Capt. Morgan was then recalled and jury were then standing, which was on alongside the Bank pavement Witness said he believed the big pillars Garden. Capt. Morgan must have lost in the Square had not been erected sight of the man he was chasing since on February 24tn. Mr. Jenkin then put the man left the pavement and got on in photographs showing that the pillars to the roadway of Des Vœux Road
Mr. S. D. Begg, of Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, said Jack A. Tai's were their
stevedores.
were there on that date.
Mr. Jenkin: Did you not see the man throwing a revolver over the railing- No; I did not.
cross-
Fung Chi, the fireman, in examination, said four men running up the street, were Chinese; three were run ning on the left side and one on the right. He lost sight of the three men and the man who was running alone was caught.
the
Central.
Capt. Morgan said that when the shot was fired he was in a brown study, think- ing about race results and counsel hoped to show that the witness's powers of ob- servation were such as not to justify any certainty as to what he said.
The evidence for the defence would be. this: As the ricksha came along the Praya, three men ame out from amongst the pillars in Wardley Street A big