CO129-541-10 Cheng Kwok Yau- application for special leave to appeal 13-10-1932 - 3-2-1933 — Page 26

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find that Chui's evidence does reasonably establish that he was the man who procured Wong and Chui to commit the murder and that he must have been doing so on behalf of someone else because he was able to pay out $2,000 for the crime.

I think also you might reasonably say you are not satisfied on that point; that you are not satisfied on the Chui evidence that Lau was the man who procured the murderers. Then, I think, the case is at an end, because the charge is that the accused, through Lau, procured the actual murder.

Assuming, on the other hand, you believe that evidence, that 10 Lau was the man who procured the murderers, you have a trail of evidence leading back from the murder up to--as I might express it-the accused's own door, leading up to the Chauffeur employed and paid by the accused. That, I think, would itself clearly be insufficient to bring home the charge to the accused. There is a distinct gap between that Chui evidence and the accused.

You have, however, one admitted fact and one high probability in addition. The admitted fact is that the accused has lost Lai Ming Fai whom he had been supporting for years, owing to the happenings of 21st and 22nd February, and she had gone to live 20 with George Fung. That is the fact.

The probability is; that anybody in the accused's position on that happening must feel resentment against the man who had taken the girl away. But resentment, even anger, is a very different thing from murderous hate and is still further removed from active steps with a view to murder, so that, in my opinion, even adding that fact and that probability to the evidence of Chui, there would still, I think, not be enough on which to find the accused guilty.

Now, one passes over to the Zimmern and Christie evidence. 30 That, of course, is intended to prove two things: first the existence of murderous hate in the mind of the accused, and secondly that he took active steps towards the murder of Fung through other channels than those by which Fung was ultimately murdered.

Now, I do not intend to analyse that evidence again. It has been done very fully and very powerfully by leading Counsel for the Defence, but I do ask you to bear in mind the points which he has made, and I would add this further point, that before you can find, before you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, that this evidence of Zimmern and Christie tells against the 40 accused, you must, I think, be prepared to find that the definite statements and conversations which the accused is alleged to have

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made were in fact made by him. It is not enough, of course, that you should acquire from the evidence of Zimmern and Christie a confused, blurred feeling that in some way they show the accused was filled with murderous hate and was taking steps to try and get Zimmern and Christie to murder Fung. That is not enough. You must be satisfied that the accused made a definite statement attributed to him by the evidence as to the $10,000 offer also the statement that the two other men had failed and so on. Now, as I say, I am not going to analyse that evidence and point out its difficulties and improbabilities and inconsistencies again. It is for you to say whether, in view of those difficulties and improbabilities and inconsistencies you can say you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused made those certain, definite statements attributed to him. If you are satisfied on that point, and if you are also satisfied on the evidence of Chui that Lau was the man who organised the murder, and that he did so as agent for somebody else, then you must ask yourself whether you can take the third, distinct, final step of saying those two things together bring home the charge to the accused.

The position in that case, on the assumption that you believe both groups of evidence would be this: you have evidence that Lau, the accused's own chauffeur, was the man who organised the crime, and that he had some principal behind him. You have, again, on the same assumption of belief in both branches of evidence, from the other side on the Zimmern and Christie side that the accused was, about the same time, filled with murderous hate against the deceased and was actually trying to get him murdered by some other men.

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Now, on that, gentlemen, you could, I think, reasonably find that the accused is guilty of the crime charged against him; that, of course, is on the assumption you believe both branches of evidence. If

do not believe the Zimmern and Christie evidence that is to say, if you are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt it is true, even though you may suspect it may be true; if you are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the Zimmern and Christie evidence is true then, in my view, the verdict must be "not guilty," because, as I have pointed out, the Chui evidence---though it takes you to the accused's own doorstops short of the accused himself.

If, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, on the Chui evidence, you are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Lau is the man who organised the murder, again, I think the case is at an end, and perhaps even more clearly, because the charge is the procuring of the murder by Lau.

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