TNAG-0487-FCO40-552-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 185

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week. The prisoner then told the Court how on the 4th of April,

he prepared to worship his gods, that he worshipped them he said

outside his house and then came into his home and his wife told

him to take away all his personal belongings, his ancestral tablets

and the censer. He explained the significance of these tablets,

he said that they represented his parents and that he prayed to

them everytime he came back from sea. He said that as he was due to go to Japan to join a ship, he would take his clothes but he

would remove the tablets and censer on his return, he said that

at this his wife got very angry and picked up the censer and

tablets and walked towards the front door to throw them down into

the street. He said that he snatched these away from her and put

them back in their original position on the family altar. Later

he told the Court that his wife only picked up the censer and that

he returned this to the altar. The prisoner said that he was very

angry and that he scolded his wife. He said that his wife dashed at him and tried to squeeze his private parts, but missed and only pinched his thigh. He then said that he pushed his wife

away and she fell down, that she got up picked up a stool and

tried to hit him with this stool, but that he snatched it from

her and that when he did this she caught hold of his scrotum and

squeezed it violently. He then said and I quote from his evidence in chief "She squeezed my private parts violently and caused such

great pain that I think at that time I lost my reason and so during the struggle I probably used the stool I had snatched from her to strike her. She squeezed my private parts and caused such pain I became confused, I can't tell how many times I struck her".

Later in his evidence he said that he had lost his reason

and dropped the stool and that then he told his wife to release her grip but she refused and he pushed her away and that she lost

her balance and fell to the floor and after she had fallen to the

floor, he noticed that her head was bleeding. In my summing up

to the jury I did point out that if the deceased had been struck with great force with the stool would she still have retained her grip on the prisoner's private parts, as that this second part of his evidence seemed to be confusing and although leaving the matter