TNAG-0811-FCO40-1016-Review-of-sentences-passed-on-UK-citizens-by-courts-in-Hong--1978 — Page 7

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J

RI

MK Courtney Esq

Government Secretariat

Hong Kong Government

Lower Albert Road

HONG KONG

Dear Mr Courtney

Your reference

Our reference PDP/B17997/5/2

PDP/P8387/5/2

Date

17 July 1978

At the Hong Kong Supreme Court in July 1976, before His Honour Mr Justice Yang, Donald David Bassett and George William Puttock were sentenced to death for murder, although the sentences were subsequently commuted by His Excellency the Governor to ones of life imprisonment.

1

we have

Both

were transferred to England in April 1978 under the provisions of the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act 1884, and in accordance with our practice in the cases of all life sentence prisoners we are about to prepare a detailed summary for the Parole Board and others concerned, covering such matters as the prisoner's background (including any previous convictions), the events leading up to and the discovery of the crime, the results of any postmortem examination, the investigation and arrest, any statement made by the prisoner, pre-trial medical reports and

In the cases of proceedings at the trial and appeal. copies of the social enquiry reports prepared by Mrs Yuen and the report made on 14 February 1977 to His Excellency the Governor by His Honour Judge Yang, which give

We have also a great deal of information about both the offence and the offenders.

s prison had access to some of the documents relating to performance in Hong Kong, but I should be very grateful for any further details that you (or the appropriate agency) could provide which would assist us in preparing the summary previously mentioned; in particular, it would be greatly appreciated if you could furnish us with a copy of any police report, together with any statements that Bassett or Puttock made after arrest, any medical reports that were before the Court and any documents relating to proceedings at the trial and Court of Appeal.

are shortly to be

You may wish to know, incidentally, that transferred to Wakefield Prison, which is one of the two establishments where virtually all life sentence prisoners are sent soon after conviction for the purposes of induction and assessment.

I have sent a copy of this letter to Mr Thompson of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for his information.

Yours sincerely

CM DOLPHIN