TNAG-1101-FCO40-1351-Legislation-on-homosexuality-in-Hong-Kong-including--Report--1981 — Page 306

317

13

admittedly only after perusing photographs. The

forensic pathologists who conducted the post-mortem

were evidently prevented from expressing their view

by the Coroner, which seems unfortunate.

This tends to go against any suggestion that the

Coroner was biased towards the Establishment, since

it would have been extremely helpful to the police

view of the matter if positive evidence with regard

to MacLennan's homosexuality had been made available

to the inquest.

If there was, in fact, positive evidence than this

destroys MacLennan's posture of innocence and goes à

great deal towards destroying his entire case. If

examination of his anus was negative it is still

possible that he was passive homosexual for not all

persons of that sort exhibit physical evidence of it,

or that he was an active homosexual it would be

-

interesting to find what the allegations of the witnesses

who were to be brought against him were in this respect.

iii) If it is accepted that MacLennan wrote that note, then

I cannot see that there is any alternative to his death

being regarded as suicide. He could never have written

the note under duress since he would have been aware of

its purpose and thus that he was signing his own death

warrant. I suggest that an independent opinion as to

the handwriting on the note be obtained from a United

Kingdom expert.

iv) If the ballistic expert is right that these are in fact

contact wounds, then again this would go a long way to

showing that this death was suicidal - I suggest that