TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 100

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PART V PERSONS INVOLVED

the caller, a message which was recounted to us by Mrs. ELLIOTT on a number of occasions in slightly different forms. Although she had come subsequently to attach great importance to this message, it seems that, at the time, it made no great impact on her; in fact, before us, she appeared to have some difficulty in recalling the exact wording of the message, but the general import seemed to be clear enough in her own mind and was, at any rate at one point, expressed by her as follows:

'The message said that some police at Mong Kok would employ "Ah Feis" to throw stones and that I would be blamed."

In her proof of evidence and on other occasions she used the expression 'Laan Tsai' instead of 'Ah Fei' but claimed that they meant the same thing.

296. Mrs. ELLIOTT's counsel in lengthy cross-examination, which will call for further comment, had sought to find some support for this allegation, whilst in her evidence Mrs. ELLIOTT told us that the same source, during the days im mediately following, gave her additional information on two occasions, first that LO Kei was the instrument chosen to implicate her and that he had been beaten into making allegations against her and secondly that, as a reward for making these allegations, he was going to receive a scholarship to enable him to study abroad. Since Mrs. ELLIOTT has described her source as reliable, it would appear that she gave credence to both these pieces of information and saw nothing in-

ť herently unlikely or inconsistent in them. As for the first, we are satisfied for reasons more fully explained later that there is no truth in it. As for the second, its own manifest absurdity provides sufficient contradiction.

297. These embellishments would seem to throw grave doubt on the reliability of Mrs. ELLIOTT's source, but she was disposed to place sufficient reliance on the information given to her to write, on 13th May, a letter to Mr. SANGUINETTI, sub- sequently her counsel, in which she said that she did not expect the real criminals to be brought to court and that she had been informed, though with 'how much truth' she could not say, 'second-hand from a decent policeman', 'related to some one who knew her', 'that the ruffians who entered into the peaceful demonstrations and turned them into riots were 'ah feis' from black societies, appointed by corrupt police, with the intention of forcing them afterwards to prove that (she) paid them to do it and that if this was true, the motive was not far to seek; as she had recently reported police and black societies in the area for corruption and drug rackets, revenge was being planned. The letter concluded with a request to keep it, to defend her if accused, and to send the case to JUSTICE”.

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298. One would have expected the recipient of such a letter either to have conde signed it to the wastepaper basket and so informed Mrs. ELLIOTT or, if he had taken ing it seriously, to have ensured or advised that the matter be reported to the authorities ch responsible for the investigation of crime.

(1) An unofficial organization of lawyers and others in Hong Kong.

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