TNAG-0820-FCO40-1027-Narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 169

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Legal Adviser does not believe that to attempt to tie these up would be of help to Miss Nightingale in any substantive sense. Examined in this light the Legal Adviser and the other departments concerned do not consider that 17 of the 32 questions have any direct bearing on Miss Nightingale's own position; 9 are dealt with in the memoran- dum of 12 September prepared for Mrs Castle in answer to earlier letters from Mr Hallmark; the answers to 4 can be found in the mater- ial already shown to Mrs Castle and Mr Hallmark and have therefore been added to the memorandum; and 2 (relating to the trial of Chan) are worth following up (see para 6(i) below). The Hong Kong author- ities are already taking the view that they have disclosed quite enough information to unauthorised parties and to go back to them (for the third time) on the basis of the memorandum would therefore cause

considerable resentment while eliciting very little, if any, new

information relevant to the case.

6. We have already examined the information supplied by the Hong Kong Government (some of which has been produced as the result of our own enquiries) to see whether any of it can be used in support of a plea for clemency by Miss Nightingale. It bears out Miss Nightingale's

version of events to the extent that we know now that

i) one of her associates, Chan, is now serving a 5-year sentence in Hong Kong for trying to recruit other girl couriers. This strongly suggests that Miss Nightingale was no more than a tool of professional drug traffickers

ii) her boy friend, Lewis Cheung, did in fact travel to Paris at

the relevant time, presumably to meet her there;

iii) she did not know Chan prior to their departure together for

Bangkok.

7. Mrs Castle's letter does not correctly state the position in ascribing to Mr David Lyman" "views on how he believes we can secure Rita's release". At my meeting with him on 3 October he revealed

himself to be unfamiliar with the details of the case and bereft of

any ideas as to how to handle it. I put to him our own thoughts on the subject and he responded enthusiastically. He agreed that the above points might enable us to construct a face-saving formula to

present to the Thais and the agreement of the Hong Kong Government

was sought to our using the information in this way. They have however replied that they would be reluctant to give general approval

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