month after he had been given seven days to explain how he came to possess some £330,000 in various bank accounts. During these seven days Godber was allowed to keep his passport, and thus escaped to England, where he settled down in a cottage in Rye, Sussex. Later, in the wake of the outcry, a Chinese subordinate was found who brought a charge against Godber, thus introducing the technicality under which he could be arrested in Britain.
In August 1973 Superintendent Ernest Hunt, formerly of the Glamorgan County Constabulary, who had risen to command the murder squad in Hong Kong, was charged under the anti-bribery ordinance which makes it an offence "to maintain a standard of living above that commensurate with present or past official emolu- ments". Mr. Hunt was charged as he lay in the private ward of a Hong Kong hospi- tal. When the magistrate remanded him on bail of HK$20,000 (£1,575) Hunt pro- duced the money from a bedside drawer in $500 bills.28 A business associate, Mr. Wong How, stood surety on his behalf for a further HK$40,000. Hunt was sube- quently jailed for one year after he failed to give a satisfactory explanation of how he was able to spend HK$207,404 (£16,726) when his official income for the period was only HK$156,599 (£12,626).
The prison sentence for Hunt and the unexpected pursuit of Godber naturally had certain effects.29 They led to a drop in morale especially among the 800-odd expatriates in the police force, where some 30 ranking officers were reported to have handed in their resignations. But such cases are little more than cosmetics. A new Anti-Corruption Commission set up with much fanfare in 1973 is largely staffed by policemen from the former Anti-Corruption Branch which was notori- ously the central agency for co-ordinating 'corruption' in the police force. 30 Per- haps in recognition of the relationship between money and the work involved, the head of the Commission, Jack Cater, is receiving the equivalent of HK$460,000 a year which one pro-Government weekly said could by at least one definition be termed "bribery”.
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It is not enough simply to repeat that the Hong Kong police force and the Colony's law system are instruments of the ruling class. The force is directly involved in pro- fiting from the inequality and insecurity which the ruling class it serves needs to maintain its high level of capital accumulation and profit. At the same time, both the police force and the legal system work to foster insecurity and, of course, to coerce compliance with a set up where the inhabitants' rights both before a court and in determining who shall make the laws are virtually non-existent.
The second component in the apparatus of control is the military. As the official Hong Kong Government Annual Report puts it: "The primary task of the British Armed Forces in Hong Kong is... to be ready at all times to give instant support to the government and the police, should this be necessary. 532 The Commander of the British Forces in the Colony is an ex-officio member of the Executive Coun- cil.
Troops were used for "riot control” in 1956. In 1966-67 the army was widely used in auxiliary work, enforcing curfew, cordoning off areas, etc. Royal Navy and RAF helicopters were used to move troops, evacuate casualties and land troops on top of multi-storey buildings.
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The bulk of the military presence in the Colony is made up of Nepalese mercen-
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