TNAG-0486-FCO40-551-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 40

Her

very block of flats of which the accused had been caretaker.

evidence was that she was directly asked by a police interviewer,

in the course of these extensive inquiries, whether she recollected

seeing the appellant upon the day of the murder. She then volunteered

the information that she had seen him between five and six on the

17th of March sweeping the road just outside the main gate of the

block of flats in which she lives and of which he was the caretaker.

It was no doubt this information which caused the interest taken by the

police in the movements of the appellant to increase sharply. On the following day his hore premises and his quarters at the block of flats were searched and it was from the latter quarters on that day that the police seized the clothing subsequent scientific examination of which supplied the principal evidential basis of the prosecution case against

the appellant.

From the outset the Crown had admitted that the case against

the appellant was a wholly circumstantial one and unquestionably the most important item in the circumstantiel chain by which it was sought to link the appellant with the committing of this murder was the fact that upon scientific examination of the clothing of the victim and of the appollant including a brown woollen sweater (exh. P.25) which had been seized by the police at the accused's caretaker quarters, woollen fibres of four different colours were found to be present on both sets of clothing. Similar woollen fibres were also found on the cord which had been bound around the girl's body. These were the findings of Mr. Edgley, the Chief Government Chemist, who subjected all these articles to a thorough microscopic examination. The slippers of the dead girl were also examined and found to show the presence of some coloured synthetic and woollen fibres but the core of the Government analyst's evidence upon which the prosecution based their case was in his finding upon the girl's cotton T-shirt of a number of woollen fibres of the following colours: black, white, turquoise, and brown/green while the appellant's sweater, Exh. P. 25 showed

Both these sets of fibres precisely the same combination of fibres.

were found among the debris shaken from the clothing by Mr. Edgley preparatory to examining the matter so cbtained.

The black and white

fibres were respectively the dyed and ur dyed portions of the strands composing the wool or which the appellant's sweater (exh. P.25) was itself made. The brown/green and the turquoise fibres came from

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