TNAG-0550-FCO40-645-Allegations-of-corruption-and-bribery-in-Hong-Kong-police-an-1975 — Page 61

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concerned was the uncorroborated statement made by Mr. CHAN to the

investigating officer in the presence of his legal advisers.

In our

judgment that alone was not sufficient in all the circumstances to

justify a prosecution".

I do not follow Mrs. Elliott's question whether disclosure of

the facts of a crime to an accused by the police constitutes an offence.

It is of necessity the practice of Police Forces when interviewing a

person in the course of enquiries into a crime to state in broad terms

the crime into which enquiries are being made. That is what happened

in Mr. CHAN's case, as I explained in my earlier letter.

I can now see that the statement in my earlier letter that

"a substantial part of the statement was written by Mr. CHAN himself"

is unclear, though. I thought that it was clear enough when read in

the context of my answer (a) as a whole. However, the position is that

the first part of Mr. CHAN's statement to the police officer was written by

the officer at Mr. CHAN's dictation. That part is followed by a longer

statement which was written by Mr. CHAN himself. What I said in my

earlier letter was directed to the fact that Mr. CHAN wrote a substantial

part of the statement not to the source from which the whole statement

came.

Mrs. Elliott refers again in her letter to the other "signatures"

in Mr. CHAN's statement. In fact, they were not signatures, but initials.

They were those of the police officer who interviewed Mr. CHAN and were

recorded to confirm deletions or corrections in Mr. CHAN's statement.

It would be improper for me to comment on Mrs. Elliott's query whether

Mr. CHAN was in a fit state to sign his name legibly on his confession

beyond saying that it is legible on each of the three occasions. This

is one of the issues which would have to be decided if criminal proceedings

were ever instituted and will arise when Mr. CHAN's civil action is heard.

I, too, have assumed that Mr. CHAN's remark that he hoped to

appear in court "so that the whole thing could be reviewed" meant that

he wished to reopen the matter of his convictions on the 3-robbery

charges. On this, all I can do is to point out again that, though