TNAG-0488-FCO40-553-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 32

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5.

(c)

Can that formula continue to be followed with propriety anyway?

(a) Where does this lead?

Question (a). LAU's is a particularly difficult type of case, because it arises out of an attempted robbery and involves two peaceable people who tried to resist or raise the alarm. One of them, a woman of 57, was brutally knifed and her husband was seriously wounded. It is the sort of case which strikes terror into the hearts of people here and lies at the root of the community's urgent feeling of insecurity. It is not an isolated case - indeed the most sinister development in the practice of criminals in the last year or two has been their willingness to use knives at the slightest show of resistance by their victims.

Although

6.

It is the very type of case with which the recent Kaifong petition to the Queen was concerned. the petition was moderate in its approach it would be a mistake to imagine that people were not deeply angered by the growth of violence and of our apparent failure to look on it as they do. I think we must therefore assume an intensely hostile public reaction to commutation in LAU's

case.

7.

In advising the Governor on LAU's case, I told him that I could see a number of grounds which might be dredged up to support commutation though I do not regard any of them as genuine reasons for commutation. They are -

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(a) The fact that there was no direct evidence

establishing that LAU struck the fatal blow.

(b)

(c)

The fact that the crucial evidence establishing that LAU struck the fatal blow came from an accomplice.

The fact that LAU had at one stage entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter which the Crown accepted. I have no doubt that the plea to manslaughter was properly accepted because the case was not a strong one at that stage, but it was accepted for that reason and not because the Crown thought that manslaughter was the right verdict.

(a) The fact that LAU is of a low level of intelligence.

Question (b). How does the fact that LAU's case is a particularly difficult one affect the LIU Chu formula? I do not need to set out the strength of the political arguments against the Governor deciding to let the law

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