Lo Lau Ling v. The Queen
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CACC000910/1971 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG (APPELLATE JURISDICTION) CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 910 OF 1971 -----------------
----------------- Coram: Huggins, J. Date of Judgment: 23rd December, 1971. ----------------- JUDGMENT ----------------- 1. This is an appeal against conviction. The Appellant was charged on two charges of theft arising out of the same incident. The police gave evidence that he was stopped in the street because he appeared to be acting suspiciously. He was carrying a suitcase. When this was searched, there were found inside three hub caps. He was asked where he got them and did not answer and was told that he would be taken to the police station. On hearing this he said that he took the hub caps from vehicles in the car park near the Hung Hom Ferry Pier. He took the police to such a car park and indicated two motor cars. One was missing one hub cap and the other was missing two hub caps. He told the police that he did not know the owners of the cars. The police checked the hub caps and found that they fitted these two cars. The owner of one of the cars was called to give evidence and said that the right rear hub cap was missing from his car and that he had not authorised anybody to remove it. He identified one of the three hub caps found on the Appellant as being his. He was cross-examined about the difficulty involved in removing such a hub cap and said that it was not easily removable. That is obviously the correct interpretation of his evidence:
2. The Appellant's story was that he was smoking dangerous drugs in Kowloon City. He came out of a divan and the police suddenly came up to him and said that they had seen him smoking dangerous drugs. He was searched and nothing was found on him, but he was dragged to a vehicle and placed on board. On reaching the police station he was asked to admit, as he said, "any one of the charges". When he refused, he was assaulted. He was then shown the three hub caps. 3. That was substantially the evidence in the case. And the learned magistrate accepted the evidence of the police. I see no reason to disagree with the conclusion which he reached. As I have indicated, only one of the car owners was called to give evidence, but on the evidence that was called I think the learned magistrate was entitled to come to the conclusion that the other two hub caps were taken without the authority of the owner, he being admittedly unknown to the Appellant. 4. The Appellant's case before me has been that the learned magistrate was biased and that he persuaded the owner of the one hub cap to change his evidence by the questions which he out to the witness. The first answer to that is that, according to the record, the learned magistrate himself put no question, but it may be - and as to this, I have no information - that the learned magistrate was putting questions on behalf of the Appellant. However, even making the assumption that he was (and there would, of course, be no impropriety in the magistrate's helping the Appellant in this way), there is certainly no indication here that any improper question was put: all the questions as they appear in the record were reasonable and proper questions. The allegation of bias is, in my view, totally unfounded. 5. The Appellant applied for a review, although this does not appear in the notes of proceedings. The reason for the absence of any notes may well be that the application for review related only to sentence, while this is an appeal against conviction. 6. In my view there is no justification for any complaint about these convictions and the appeal is dismissed. 23rd December, 1971. Representation: Appellant in person. Carolan C.C. for Respondent. |