TNAG-0487-FCO40-552-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 187

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114. Where on a charge of murder there is

evidence on which the Jury can find that the person charged was provoked (whether by things done or by things said or by both together) to lose his self-control, the question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable man do as he did shall be left to be determined by the jury; and in determining that question the jury shall take into account everything both done and said according to the effect which, in their opinion, it would have on a reasonable man." I also explained that so far as they were concerned a reasonable man was an ordinary resident of Hong Kong of the same race and way of life as the prisoner. I also stressed to the jury that it was for the Crown and the Crown alone to prove to them beyond reasonable doubt that the prisoner was not provoked, that it was not for the prisoner to prove that he was so provoked.

I also reiterated to the jury an observation made by Counsel for the Defence that the weapon used by the prisoner to strike the deceased supported the prisoner's evidence that he had snatched this stool from his wife, as such a stool would hardly be one of choice if one was selecting a weapon to kill a person, especially as evidence had been adduced during the trial, not

adduced from the accused but from someone else that at the time

of the attack a chopper had been lying nearby, Counsel submitted that the prisoner grabbed this stool from his wife and under severe provocation used it to batter her in her head. I pointed out to the jury that on the forensic evidence the deceased received at least 16 blows on her head and that Defence Counsel suggested that this showed that the prisoner due to the provocation that he had been subjected to had lost all control of himself, and again

that if he had intended to kill his wife or to cause her scricus injury, why should he immediately have dialled 999 after the incident. I also suggested to the jury that when considering the statements made by the prisoner, and the fact that he alleged that certain things that he had said to the police did not appear in those statements, they should compare the lucidity of those statements