TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 116

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PART V PERSONS INVOLVED

349. All this contrasts vary sharply with his statement to the officer of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs who interviewed him on our behalf prior to calling him and recorded him as saying:

'After dinner, we walked along Nathan Road towards London Theatre (junction Nathan Road-Austin Road) where we saw a big crowd holding a protest demons tration. Some of those present recognized me and lifted me to stand on a pile of (road-repair) sign boards, and I was asked to address the crowd. This I did, and in the presence of at least four police superintendents and about 60 police officers, A procession then began and I took the lead-about 3-4,000 people participating On arriving at Astor Theatre in Nathan Road, I noticed another big crowd there, also present were soldiers, police and what not. People threw stones, and whatever handy at the police and soldiers. Everything was so confused and the crowd was extremely hostile. I then saw the police throwing tear gas bombs etc. at the public. Vehicles were burnt; there was shouting; more people joined in and more things were thrown at the police and the army. Some were pouring kerosene. The situation was then beyond control and I urged the crowd to go home. Some people whom I did not know forced me to set fire to parked vehicles and I remem- ber one of them was quite well dressed and wore gloves, it appeared that he was organizing a small group at the rioting',

350. The sharp conflict between this earlier statement and his later testimony is apparent and we think the statement is likely to have been nearer the truth.

351. Thereafter, his statement and his testimony became particularly puzzling, and difficult to follow. He talked of being pushed into a bus by the police to protect him, of travelling in this No. 4A bus along the usual route, of seeing cars being burned, of getting out to persuade people not to do this, of seeing looting at Shui Hing Store-but both the manner and substance of his evidence at this point carried so little sense of reality and was so confusing, chaotic and studded with fantasy, that it is not worth repeating and affords no adequate basis for deduction as to what he was doing at this time. He claimed that before retiring late in the evening in the Liu Chong Hing Bank Building, near Shanghai Street, he threw away his red jacket which he had previously worn so prominently. He was, he said, arrested for curfew breaking when he emerged next morning at about 5 a.m. He was subsequently convicted of inciting a crowd to interfere with law

and order.

352. He made allegations about being beaten to which we have already referred and disbelieved, as well as allegations about Mrs. ELLIOTT which are dealt with in Chapter 1 of this Part. Similar allegations were made by him on 15.5.66 against Mr. BERNACCHI and members of the Social Democratic Party.

LEE Tak Yee

353. Born in Kuala Lumpur in 1945, LEE Tak Yee went to China with his mother when he was three years old, but in 1956 he and his mother came to Hong Kong from China with a younger brother and two sisters; his father apparently