Wong Chak Yan v. The Queen
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CACC000842/1980
Confessions - reliability - interspersed with confessions to non existent offences. Record of evidence - importance of keeping record in intelligible manner.
----------------- Coram: O'Connor, J. in Court Date of Judgment: 14th November 1980 ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- 1. The appellant was convicted on three counts of street robbery of persons unknown. The only evidence against the appellant was confessions made by him under interrogation. There is no doubt that convictions may be sustainable though based on no evidence other than confessions, however such evidence must always be scrutinised with particular care and caution. There was no evidence given as to why or for what offence the appellant was arrested. Evidence was given of a series of statements made by him to a police officer over a period of twenty-nine hours. The appellant objected to the statements as being involuntary and untrue. After a voir dire they were admitted in evidence. The officer did not suggest to the appellant that he, the officer, was investigating any particular offence. He commenced his interrogation by saving he was carrying out an investigation into robbery cases which had occurred recently. He then asked about a pawn ticket for a Sandoz wristwatch. That pawn ticket had been found on the appellant. The appellant said he had bought the watch. He was asked had he pawned anything else and he mentioned a number of items including a gold necklace and a Tudor wristwatch both of which he said he had been given to pawn by a man Sze Ngan Lam. Under further questioning he admitted he had obtained the gold necklace by a street robbery and he gave a very detailed description of the robbery and of the victim. This robbery is not the subject matter of a charge. Some two and a half hours later under further questioning he again referred to that robbery and then went on to describe in detail another street robbery by him in which he obtained the Tudor watch. This robbery is not the subject matter of a charge. He then went on to tell of robberies, which are the subject matter of the three charges, but interspersed them with details of two other robberies which are not the subject matter of charges. 2. The police appear to have recovered some items including a gold necklace from pawn shops before they renewed the interrogation after a lapse of some ten hours. The appellant again confirmed the circumstances of the robbery by which he had obtained the necklace. Then a little over an hour later he said that he had not obtained it, by robbery. He also said that he had been wrong about the Tudor wristwatch that he had not obtained it by robbery either but had been given it by Sze Ngan Lam to pawn. 3. Sze Ngan Lam was a prosecution witness. He said he had given the appellant items to pawn. Mr Sze had receipts showing he had bought those items. It appears that one of those items was the gold necklace. 4. In these circumstances it was obvious that, even granted the statements were properly admitted in evidence, great caution was called for before giving any weight to them. The learned magistrate in his findings does not mention the fact that the confessional statements of the appellant included detailed confessions and later retractions, to robberies which clearly did not take place. The learned magistrate in his findings explains why he found the statements voluntary but as regards the weight to be attached to them he simply says that he was sure they were truthful admissions. In the circumstances crown counsel, quite properly, was not able to support the convictions. I allowed the appeal. 5. One ground of appeal was that the evidence as recorded was of such an obscure and contradictory nature that no coherent(sic) findings could be made thereon. It was unnecessary to consider this ground, but both counsel and myself had difficulty in following the evidence as it appeared in the record. This appears to be due to the manner in which the record was kept, rather than the manner in which the evidence was given. The record was disjointed and ambiguous. It might have been quite adequate for the purpose of reminding the magistrate of what evidence was given, but it was not adequate for bringing that evidence before other persons. Magistrates should remember that the record is not only for their own use but also for the use of other persons and ought to be kept in a manner comprehensible to them.
Representation: A. J. J. Sanguinetti assigned by the Director of Legal Aid for the appellant T. M. Gall, Senior Brown Counsel, for the Crown/prosecution |