TNAG-0554-FCO40-649-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 162

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the danger of acting upon the uncorroborated evidence of

It is his contention that the warning given was

What the learned judge said was:

accomplices.

insufficient.

"I now want to define to you what an accomplice is. Any person who is knowingly so closely associated with a crime, either before or after its commission, is an accomplice and this includes any person who knowingly instigates, participates, assists or renders encouragement or advice in a crime. It is my duty to direct and warn you that it is dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, but if, giving full weight to that warning, you come to the conclusion that without any doubt, an accomplice is speaking the truth, then the fact that there is no corroboration matters not at all, and you are entitled to convict if you are satisfied that the evidence so warrants. In one way or another you would do well to treat all the accused as accomplices and scrutinize their evidence very carefully, in the knowledge that cach of them may have some interest of his own in trying to shift the blame from himself onto others. The evidence of one accomplice cannot corroborate the evidence of another accomplice nor can the evidence of an accomplice be corroborated by the evidence of any witness I shall direct you to regard as unreliable.

Now, what is corroboration? It is some independent testimony which affects the accused by tending to connect him with the crime, that is, evidence direct or circumstantial which implicates the accused, which confirms in some material particular not only the evidence given by the accomplice that a crime has been committed, but also the evidence that the accused committed it. The kind of corroboration required is not confirmation by independent evidence of everything that the accomplice says, for in that case it would be unnecessary to call the accomplice. An accused's own evidence may afford the necessary corroboration, as may also a statement made by

an accused to the police, provided you are satisfied that such statement is true.

Of course, members

of the jury, if when you come to consider the statement made by each accused and you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt in respect of the accused to whom it relates that the statement is true, then it may well be it is entirely a matter for you that you will not have to look any further to reach your decision regarding to that particular accused.

Now, with regard to accomplices. I direct you that you are to treat the witness MA Kam-yuen as an accomplice."