TNAG-0488-FCO40-553-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 115

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a knife and the deceased withdrew again into the bathroom. They said that the attack upon them lasted for several minutes before they could escape into the bathroom and that when they got into the bathroom they did not notice the deceased. Neither did they see the deceased anywhere outside when they themselves climbed down the neon sign. Again, from the position of the deceased's body when he was found lying in the street immediately after his fall

it was clear that he could not have fallen vertically from the

bathroom window as his body was found about 20 feet to the left of a position directly beneath the bathroom window. Also when Mr. Cheung and Mr. Sin saw the deceased's body fall they said that

it fell from almost directly above them and they had crawled some distance to the left of the bathroom window. I pointed out all

these factors to the jury so they should have been well aware of

them when they considered their verdict.

There was also the evidence of a friend of the prisoner,

KWOK Chi-keung, who said that he was outside the premises standing in Leighton Road, that he never went into the building with the prisoner but that he saw the prisoner come out into the street wielding a knife and telling him to run and that all the time he was in the street nobody fell from the building. I explained to the jury that it was for the Crown to satisfy them beyond reasonable doubt that not only was it the actions of the intruders that caused

the deceased to fall to his death but that the Crown must also

satisfy them that the prisoner was still present participating in that common design of inflicting serious injuries on the deceased

at the time that the deceased was under a well-grounded apprehension

of at least personal violence which caused him to fall from this building. By their verdict the jury obviously did not believe the evidence of KOK Chi-keung and for that matter neither did I.

Upon further consideration of this case I am satisfied that the deceased must have had his clothes with him in the bathroom

and that he had time to dress himself in his shirt and trousers.

That he then climbed out of the bathroom window and in some way edged himself along the asbestos awning from which he fell. Together with the jury I visited the premises in question and we saw the awning which was little more than 2 feet wide and it was sloping