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THE GUARDIAN Wednesday November 28 1973
The Hongkong Government, after years of minimising the problem, this autumn officially conceded for the first time the existence of serious corruption in the colony's police force and civil service. Its new anti-corruption commission, set up as a result of the Blair-Kerr Report, has been given the task of more vigorously rooting out
LA
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corrupt officers. It is to be hoped that it will al o turn its attention to unfinished business from the past-- J notably the Star Ferry riots affair of 1956, which sorg claim involved an attempt by a group of pelice officers, * the frame still serving with the force in 1973, to
colony's leading liberal, Mrs Elsie Elliott (right)
**
Did police frame their top critic?
A FORMER missionary in China] and the beadmistress of a Kow loon girls' school, Mrs Elsie Elhoit, emerged in the early 1980s as the colony's principal critic of police and civil service cor "uption.
A transparently honest woman with a fierce social conscience, who spoke fair Cantonese, she acquired an almost saintly reputation among ordinary Chinese, who turned with problems of every kind and particularly with coni- plaints of corrupt actions by police officers and Government oli rials.
to her
These Mrs Elliott, an elected urkan counciller, pursued with great vigour. Her allegations wee not always accurate or properly substantiated, but the man thrust of what she was proclaiming
the early 1960s--that Hong Kong had a hure corruption problem that the Government was simply refusing to recognise bas bein amply borne out by recent events,
In 1965 Mrs Elliott was an active member of a local com- milter which produced a report on organised crime and corrup. fion and called for a Royal Commission of hairy to be set up by the British Govern- rient.
In April of the following year a numb.r of young Chinese, students and others, began what started off as a peaceful demonstration against increases in fares by the Star Ferry_com
runs the boats pany, which
Kowloon to
{Tf
ing from Victoria.
These pro usud dally by tens
of thousands of Hong Kong commuters and the protest was against not only the fare increases but the power of big business and government in the colony over a working class which has virtually no control over its wages, rents, and other living costs. The demonstration developed into riots and the then Chief Justice, Sir Michael Hogan, was appointed chairman of a tribunal of inquiry.
Mrs Elliott had been a lead- ing opponent of the increases, and she endorsed the aims of the demonstrators, but like other liberals consulted, advised them to stay within the law. When the inquiry opened she was away in London lobby. Ing for the Royal Commission that her committee had recom- mended the previous year.
While he was still in Eng. land, a Eurasian youth, Brian Raggensack, testifled at the tri- bunal that Mrs Elliott, had given Hong Kong $5,000 (about £400) to the demonstrators to encourage them to riot. Ile claimed that a leader of the demonstrators, Â 19-year-old
factory worker called Lo Kei, had told him this while both were in prison after being arrested during the riots.
Raggensack's testimony was a bombshell. It was naturally headlined in the local papers. and the effect was to sully Mrs Elliott's hitherto untarnished least in the reputation-at
minds of those who did not know her personally.
When Lo Kei himself testified, however, he said that after his arrest he had been beaten up at a police station and made to sign a statement incriminating Mrs Elliott,
as
well as a number of blank statement forms. Another demonstrator later claimed that a senior detective had asked him for help in framing Mrs Elliott.
#
Further evidence that there might have been some kind of police plot then began to sur- face-although the tribunal was not to hear all of it and did not pursue some of what it did hear.
First, Mrs Elliott, who had returned from London, testified that during the riots a woman friend who had a relative in the police had warned her that an attempt was being made to, frame her, and that Lo Kei and other young men held at Mong- kok police station had been coerced into signing false state- ments,
Kei
Secondly, two of the demon- strators, Lo
Lee and Tak-yee, both said in testimony that they believed Brian Rag. gensack to be a police informer, or at least a man who had had the numerous contacts with police in the past. If this were rue, it seemed at least possible that he and one other "demon- strator," also identified as police contact, had been acting
સ
tas informers and even as Jagents provocateurs during the demonstrations. This would raise new questions about the riots themselves and would also tend to discredit Raggensack's: evidence.
Thirdly, a former Hong Kong police officer claimed in a writ
ten statement to the tribunal that a serving police officer had told him that several police were involved in an effort to suborn Raggensack through his mother. All this was after Rag- gensack had testified and at a time when it seemed pessible- he might be recalled and his evidence re-examined.
The statement, which was of course hearsay, zaid that two British (ID officers had bad several meetings with Ragger. sack's mother, some at police headquarters and one at her home. Raggensack WWE of course, still in prison. Hi the facts were true, one posible interpretation was clearly that the officers were concerned to ensure that if Raggensnek werg recalled he would not diverge from his original evidence.
The statement was, referred by the tribal to the colony's Attorney-General, who passed
it for investigation to the CID. The tribunal, however, never heard the results of the investi gation, since it was still incom. plete when the inquiry closed. Indeed, the results were never officially announced.
Meanwhile, Mrs Elliott in her testimony had refused to iden- tify the woman and the police officer who had first told her of the alleged "frame-up plan. As a result of this refusal she was dismissed as a witness for contempt.
Her
13
dentification refusal might seem at first sight suspi- cious unit is recalled that Mrs Elliott's whole position as one of the few liberals trusted by ordinary Chinese people was based on her maintaining the anonymity of her informants if they wished it, which they almost invariably did. In this case she had made several efforts to get her informant and the policeman who originated the information to agree to he named, but as she told the tri- bunal, they were too frightened of "victimisation if they did
$0.
The tribunal at this stage and in its report was well within its
·rights to observe that her refu-
sal made further investigation difficult. But it also chose to interpret it as deliberately per- verse and obstructionist and as throwing doubt on the rest of her
Michael testimony. Sir observed that he was sending her "to the bar of public opinion to purge her cot templ. (Actual public reaction re elect her, with a greally increasul majority, to the banaume 4)
ARS
**
The Tribuel's report pal cated fat it had ever nkin amy credence to the Berry 4 Mis Jolliot!
brit d incited the demoudritard
ale interpreti it due to b tim of Ro¢ env@As and Kei'e testimony on Preziðener of Sicial Branch offers %hn inter jewed Lo Del genre time after hit inisial int, rrogat pa by ordinary police.
The Special Branch cinded that To Tai bord indeed implicated Mrs Flight to podia and to Bagens uk, lest that what he had said, thea and A the tribimal, were the fights of fenfusy of a man riven fa menlevity and een ration " It des appear that la Red was a rather corded young man, but the assumption that the whole of his e.jdence Was
墨言
untrustworthy as a result was an extremely broad ene Mirs Elol {་ཤུབ exonerated of the charge of inciting to riot. What the fri. bunal din not sofistetoile establish in ber vie- and that of others is why the allegations. surfaced in the firs' place
Was it merely the product of Lo Kei's unstable mind, an the tribunal deckled ? Or, e insider- ing Mrs Eol's evidence of the message of warning, Reg- gensack's possibly dubious posi- tion, and the never explained meetings between British detec tives and his mother, could it
indeed have been the product of a plot by some pobce to rid themselves of a dificult met dangerous critic ?
If there was a plot, of course, It has to be suri:sed that it was abandoned when it was r? » lised how unlikely of was succeed. But if the fulenti on was there, the crime seould no less heinous. It seems fair to say that enough doght on the ¡ questions remalus ✨ justify n
reinvestigation.
Martin
Woollacolt
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