TNAG-0554-FCO40-649-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 124

SOCIAL ENQUIRY ON

CONDEMNED PRISONER

Name

Religion

Native Place

: CHOI Man-kin @ Man Po-wah.

Nil.

Wai Yeung, Chiu Chau, Mainland China.

Place of Birth: Hong Kong.

Age

B.

: 22, according to his date of birth: 22.7.1952, as

verified on his Hong Kong Birth Certificate No. 11106NR.

GENERAL INFORMATION

His

The Prisoner was born with an unhappy childhood. father had a love affair with a sampan girl when he was about the age of two. As a result, his parents had separated for seven years before they came together again to have a second child and reconciled. Probably because of this, the Prisoner was said to have developed into an immature person.

He was said to be remarkably undemonstrative, and that lack of a father figure and a sibling playmate during the first nine years of his growth was said to be possible accountable factors.

During his parents' separation, the Prisoner's mother had worked at embroidery at home and was assisted meagrely by her younger brother who worked as a poor mechanical apprentice then to support their lives:

The Prisoner studied in these harsh circumstances at several government primary schools. He began at the Sir Ellis Kadoorie Government Frimary School, but owing to the distance from home, he was transferred to the Lui Kee Government Primary School and then to the Hollywood Road Government Primary School. His performance, however, fell below standards each year as the English lessons becarie more difficult, and starting from primary four, he began to play truant. His schooling was brought to a sudden end in the middle of primary six when a fire burnt down their hut in Hong Kong and they had to move to the New Territories.

The fire, however, had rewakened his father's conscience, and brought his parents together again. The new reunited family put up temporary residence in Sai Kung, in the New Territories, for about two years, while waiting for resettlement. It was here that the Prisoner had started his first employment. He worked as a dim-sum boy for a few months and then became apprentice at a shipyard. However, he could not tolerate the hardship of apprenticeship and left one and a half years later.

In 1965 or thereabouts, he worked with his maternal uncle at a machinery works in Wong Tai Sin, Kowloon. Then after a fight with the neighbouring boys, he changed to work at a

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