Yau Chak Chi v. The Queen

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 250 OF 1973

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JUDGMENT

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1.  The Appellant appeals against his conviction on a charge of unlawful possession of an offensive weapon in a public place. Two police officers gave evidence that they saw the Appellant near the entrance to Morse Park, that he appeared to be acting in a suspicious manner and they followed him. When the Appellant saw them he walked faster, and when they increased their speed he increased his speed still further. When the officers approached him, they said, the Appellant threw something wrapped in newspaper on the ground: they picked it up and found that it was a knife wrapped in the newspaper. If that evidence was believed, as it was, there was ample evidence to justify a conviction.

2.  The Appellant gave evidence that he was walking there and that he had no knife at all; that he did have a newspaper in his hand and that the police officers told him to throw it on the ground; that he was searched but nothing was found on him; that he was taken to the police station and there a knife was planted on him.  That improbable story was to some extent supported by the Appellant’s father, who said that he saw the Appellant before he went out and actually went through his pockets, as he said in order to see whether the Appellant was keeping any money from him.  The father asserted that he even took up the newspaper and shook it to see if there was any money inside. 

3.  The learned magistrate, as I have said, believed the police officers and, perhaps not surprisingly, disbelieved the evidence of the defence. 

4.  The appeal is dismissed.

26th April 1973.