Leung Yuen Chak v The Queen

Judgment Cited authorities (1) Cited in Precedent Map Related
Judgment Date31 July 1968
Judgement NumberCACC355/1968
Year1968
CourtCourt of Appeal (Hong Kong)
CACC000355/1968 LEUNG YUEN CHAK v. THE QUEEN

CACC000355/1968

IN THE SUPPEME COURT OF HONG KONG

(Appellate Jurisdiction)

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 355 OF 1968

(On Appeal from Causeway Bay Case No.9281/68)

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BETWEEN
LEUNG YUEN CHAK

Appellant
AND
THE QUEEN

Respondent

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Coram: Rigby, S.P.J.

Date of Judgment: 31 July 1968

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant was charged with the offence of burglary and larceny committed on the night of the 15th April. There was ample evidence to establish beyond doubt that a burglary was in fact committed on that night at the premises so stated in the charge, and that in the course of that burglary property was stolen. The only issue is whether or not it was in fact the appellant who participated in that burglary and larceny.

2. The sole evidence against him, subject to a small piece of evidence to which I will later refer, consisted of an alleged voluntary statement made by him. He was arrested on the 21st of May, which would be some five weeks after the burglary had taken place. He was arrested in the street at about 9.30 p.m. by D.P.C. 5226 on information received. It would seem apparent that such information was presumably received from an informer. He was taken back to the police station and, according to the evidence of D.P.C. 5226, he was interrogated in connection with this offence. At some stage in the course of that interrogation, according to the evidence of the police constable, he found it necessary to caution the appellant. Again, according to the evidence of the police constable, he wrote that caution in his notebook and thereafter the appellant himself wrote down a statement in the police constable's notebook. That statement, if true, was tantamount to a full admission by the appellant that he had committed the offence alleged. That statement was made, according to the notebook, at 21.55 hours on the 21st May, being the date upon which the appellant was arrested. At 22.15 hours that same evening, according to the evidence of D.P.C. 5226 and according to the contents of his notebook produced in evidence, the appellant then, under caution, wrote down a further statement in the constable's notebook admitting the offence of another burglary at the same premises committed on the 14th of January, that is to say, some three months before the offence in respect of which he now appears before this court. Again, that statement, if true, contained a complete admission by the appellant that he entered into those same premises on the 14th January and committed another offence of burglary and larceny.

3. Indeed, in that statement he went on to say that part of the property so stolen by him, consisting of a wrist watch and a radio, had been sold and could not be recovered and that the $500 which he had stolen had been spent. It is apparent from the record of previous convictions now produced before me in this court that that written statement made by the appellant in D.P.C.5226's notebook could not have been true for the very good reason that the appellant was at that time in prison serving a sentence for another offence.

4. The statements allegedly made by the appellant in the notebook of D.P.C. 5226 were vigorously disputed by him at the trial. He alleged that...

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