CO129-541-11 Cheng Kwok Yau- trial judge's notes 1-1-1932 - 31-12-1932 — Page 48

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

48

a door to fraud, less reliable by reason of its

being second-hand, and would tend to protract legal

inquiries and to encourage the substitution of weaker

for stronger evidence. I think, however, that if

fact

or dinary intelligent reasoning would accept a fact as

probative of the main/alleged, as it undoubtedly would

accept the evidence objected to in the present case,

some such de finite rule of legal exclusion must be found

applicable before it can be shut out. I think that

no such rule is applicable here. The mere fact that

evidence discloses another offence does not alone exclude

it. Here the evidence was not offered to show that the

accused was of a murderous disposition generally and

likely to commit another murder, and it did not in

any way tend to suggest that he was. It was offered

dimply in order to prove that he was the person who

employed Lau to procure the murder and in my opinion

it was clearly admiɛsible for that purpose.

I think that the conviction should be

affi:med.

(sd) J.H.Kemp,

Chief Justice,

12th September, 1932.

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