香港特別行政區 訴 曾梓維

On 16 September 2026, the Court of Appeal (Yeung JA) handed down reasons in HKSAR v Tsang Tsz Wai (CACC 82/2025), refusing the applicant's application for leave to appeal against his conviction for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ms Lo Tin-wai, Assistant DPP, appeared for the respondent.

The applicant was the fourth of six defendants in a multi-handed trial arising from a violent incident on 21 September 2022 ("the 921 incident"), in which a silver seven-seater bearing a fake plate (PS4348) followed, rammed and intercepted the victim's car in Kennedy Town, leaving the victim with multiple knife wounds. CCTV tracked the seven-seater's escape to a car park in Quarry Bay, where a man in black (identified as D3) fitted the genuine plate XM3926 before driving in. The applicant was arrested with D3 two days later, cautioned in terms that named the PS4348 seven-seater, and released on bail on 25 September. The following evening, police staking out the car park observed D3, D5, D6 and the applicant arrive wearing masks; the applicant handed something to D3, then walked with D5 and D6 toward the seven-seater. D5 was carrying the car keys and five packs of alcohol wipes. Police recovered weapons, fake plates and surveillance equipment from the vehicle, and the applicant's DNA was found on the grab handle above the right middle-row door and on a Pocari Sweat bottle. The applicant did not testify.

After trial in DCCC 494/2023, the applicant was convicted and sentenced to 13 months' imprisonment. He sought leave to appeal on a single ground: that the trial judge's inferences were "overreaching" on six specific points.

The Court held that the ground was not reasonably arguable. (1) The DNA evidence was not relied on in isolation but combined with CCTV showing the middle-row door open during the escape, weapons recovered from the vehicle, and the driving route tying the seven-seater to the 921 incident (§14). (2) The inference that the applicant, D5 and D6 knew the police were in the unmarked car was properly drawn from PW2's evidence and the CCTV (§15). (3) The trial judge did not draw any adverse inference from the applicant's silence at the caution interview; the inference rested on the logical connection between the content of the caution (which named the PS4348 seven-seater) and the applicant's conduct three days later, with no need for him to have spoken (§16). (4) The cumulative effect of the conduct on 26 September, including the handover to D3, the hand gestures, the conspicuous alcohol wipes, and the synchronised retreat, supported the only reasonable inference of a pre-arranged, divided conspiracy to dispose of the vehicle and its contents (§17).

Leave to appeal was refused.

For practitioners, the case confirms that a trial judge may draw inferences from a defendant's knowledge gained at a caution interview without infringing the right to silence, provided the inference rests on the logical link between what the defendant was told and what he subsequently did, not on the fact that he chose not to answer. It also illustrates how circumstantial evidence, properly accumulated, can support a conspiracy conviction even where no direct evidence of agreement exists.