CONFIDENTIAL
HKA 442/393/2
Sir Murray MacLehose
GBE KONG KCVO HONG KONG
14 February 1978
HKA 435/393/6.
YES
YAUMAWEI CORRUPTION CASE: USE OF CR55.
1. In his telegram no. 99 of 6 February the Secretary of State confirmed that he would view sympathetically any request from you for compulsory retirement under CR55 of police officers believed to be involved in corruption cases where there are good reasons why the grounds for dismissal should not be put to the officer.
In
2. I should perhaps make it clear that the Secretary of State took this decision because of the importance he attaches to ridding the Public Service of corrupt police officers. In each case you will need to supply convincing evidence of the officer's guilt, although we accept that in certain cases the evidence is much that it would not hold up in court (for example because the key witnesses declined to give evidence, or had lost their credibility). I must emphasize that the Secretary of State has agreed to this exceptional arrangement only because of the over- riding need to get rid of corruption in the Service. these cases, and in these cases alone, we shall not apply the full procedure outlined in paragraphs 5-9 of John Champion's letter HX 18/501/5 of 9 April 1974 to Alan Scott about the use of Colonial Regulatiɔɔns to terminate appointments. We shall not ask that the officers concerned should be given full details of the case against the and there will be no question of referring these crses to any sort of independent Review Committee. Secretary of State has accepted my advice that such a course entails some political risk here and that the risk must be accepted.
The
CONFIDENTIAL
JA B Stewart
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