As prosecution makes case for admitting the televised images at trial of seven police officers, defence questions their authenticity
CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Friday, 03 June, 2016, 1:26pm
Prosecution witnesses present in the area where activist Ken Tsang Kin-chiu was allegedly maliciously assaulted by seven police officers during the Occupy protests in 2014 said news footage failed to capture the entirety of events on the night, a court heard today.
The city’s prosecutors have sought to convince the District Court that footage should be admitted as court exhibits in the trial of the seven policemen, arguing that it recorded the events leading up to the alleged assault on Tsang.
But defence counsel objected, countering that the authenticity of the footage – from TVB, ATV, Now TV and Apple Daily – could not be verified and that there could be no assurance it had not been tampered with.
The seven policemen are chief inspector Wong Cho-shing, 48, senior inspector Lau Cheuk-ngai, 29, detective sergeant Pak Wing-bun, 42, and constables Lau Hing-pui, 38, Chan Siu-tan, 31, Kwan Ka-ho, 32, and Wong Wai-ho, 36.
All deny one joint count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent against Tsang. Chan also denies one lesser charge of common assault.
In court Friday, ATV footage depicting the arrest of Tsang was shown to senior inspector Wat Chin-cheuk, who helped subdue “a man in black upper garment” and described his struggle as “vigorous”.
He identified himself in the footage, which he said was consistent with his memory.
But when asked by defence counsel Cheng Huan SC under cross-examination whether the footage provided “an incomplete picture of what happened”, he stated: “I agree.”
Station sergeant Cheng Ho-cheung, who was on duty that night, recalled that he fell on a flower bed at Tamar Park in Admiralty when he helped his colleagues subdue a man clad in “black upper garment”.
He also confirmed he appeared in the ATV footage, adding that what it depicted was consistent with his recollections of the night.
Cheng added that the subdued man was handed to other officers from a crime team.
But under cross-examination, he stated that his participation in subduing the man lasted about five minutes, while the shown footage ran only about a minute.
Also testifying, former ATV senior video editor Chim Yat-kin explained the station retrieved its footage from cameramen in two ways, one of which was through transmission after which the footage would be recorded on the television station’s end.
Activist Ken Tsang convicted of assaulting police during Occupy protests
The other way, he said, entailed a cameraman taking a storage card from a camera back to the office, where the card’s contents were converted into what is called “master tape”.
Chim said the device responsible for conversion had no other functions apart from handling conversion. “What was recorded in the tape was what you see on the monitor,” he said.
It is alleged that the seven “unlawfully and maliciously” caused grievous bodily harm with intent against Tsang outside a pump station near Lung Wui Road in Admiralty on October 15, 2014.
Chan allegedly assaulted Tsang in an interview room of a police station on a separate occasion.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1963546/ken-tsang-arrest-footage-doesnt-tell-full-story-hong-kong
