TNAG-0554-FCO40-649-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 164

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accomplice, the contention manifestly fails because there was a very clear direction that

"[t]he 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".

It might have been better to say that the evidence of an accomplice

could not be corroborated by the evidence of any witness the jury

thought unreliable, but nothing turns upon that.

Complaint is made that the learned judge wrongly

admitted in evidence extra-judicial confessions made by each of the

Applicants, on the ground (or so we understand the notices as now cxplained by counsel) that the decisions that the statements were

voluntary were against the weight of the evidence. In the alternative

it is said (1) that the statements were obtained in circumstances

which required the judge, in the exercise of a discretion, to exclude the statements even if they were lawfully admissible, and (2) that

the statement of the first Applicant should have been excluded on

the ground that its prejudicial effect exceeded its probative effect. It was even contended that the first sentence of the learned judge's ruling showed that he did not appreciate the true nature of the

burden of proof, but we say no more about that than that such a contention could only be based upon a complete misunderstanding of what the judge said. It is necessary to state how the various

statements came to be made. The first Applicant was in fact the last to be arrested by the police. At about noon on 25th March 1972 Inspector CHAN Wing-cham went to the first Applicant's home and in

his bedroom he made a statement under caution. After a report had been made at Bayview Police Station the first Applicant was taken to the Triad Society Bureau, where he made two further statements. All these statements were rejected by the learned judge because he was not satisfied that they were taken in the circumstances alleged by the police. However, there was evidence that at 4.43 p.m. (which was only 20 minutes after his third statement) the first Applicant was formally charged with murder and his answer to the charge was one of the statements which it is said were wrongly admitted. The learned judge said that he was satisfied that it was freely and voluntarily made, but counsel points out that the judge never alluded to the proximity in time between the last of the rejected statements and that which was admitted and it is submitted