TNAG-1213-FCO40-1516-Crimes-and-sentences-in-Hong-Kong--including-death-sentences-1982 — Page 96

Your Excellency,

Court of Justice,

Hong Kong.

14th April, 1982.

Criminal Session Case No. 40 of 1981

Regina v.

ANNEX

In accordance with Clause XXXIV of the Royal Instructions,

who was unanimously convicted

I report upon the case of

on two counts, one of murder and another of arson, by a jury on the

11th September, 1981.

For the crime of murder, he was sentenced to death by the

court and his sentence for arson was respited i.e. sentencing of

the prisoner on that count was for the time being withheld. The prisoner appealed against his convictions of as well murder as arson, and his appeal on both convictions was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on the 7th April, 1982.

These two offences of murder and arson arose out of the same

incident on the 15th November, 1979: The prisoner

52-year-old watch repairer. He shared accommodation at

was a

with six other co-tenants,

5 males and one female. For a period prior to the incident in which

on fire by the prisoner resulting

there was friction between the

the said first floor premises were set

in the death of the female co-tenant,

prisoner and two of the male co-tenants over his spraying of insecticide

during meal-time and the volume of his played radio. On one occasion

in July 1979, altercation between the prisoner and two of his male

co-tenants led to an assault on the person of the prisoner. The

attacking male co-tenant was convicted of such assault and fined

$1,000 in the Magistracy. On the surface, tranquility seemed to

have been restored to the said first floor premises. As a matter of

fact, both parties to the said assault maintained in court before the

jury that confrontation between these

adversaries had ceased before

the fire on the 15th November, 1979.