HKSAR v. LAM MEI LIN

FAMC No. 13 of 1998

IN THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 13 OF 1998 (CRIMINAL)

(ON APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL

FROM MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 1099 OF 1997)

_____________________

_______________________________

D E T E R M I N A T I O N

_______________________________

Mr Justice Ching PJ:

1. This is an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against a conviction for careless driving. The applicant is a bus driver who at the date of the offence had been driving route 298 for a period of four years. She was found to have been driving along the left hand lane along the Tseung Kwan O Road. If she had continued in that lane she would have gone onto the Kai Tin Road rather than to her destination at Lam Tin. She was found to have turned into the next lane over an area of hatched markings on the road and collided with a private car in that lane and with a safety island on the left.

2. She has put forward no less than 11 points to show that a substantial and grave injustice has been done to her. Eight were in her written application for leave and three were added orally at the hearing. These included whether her bus struck the car or whether it was the other way around. The question, however, was the manner of her driving. Others were an allegation that the driver of the private car had attempted to flee the scene, arguments as to whether the Magistrate was justified in accepting the evidence of the prosecution and rejecting hers. Two of the points (added at the hearing) related to the incompleteness of the transcript and that she was supplied with two versions of the audio recordings which were not identical but these points could not in any event have affected the proceedings before the Magistrate who heard the witnesses. The basis of her case is that she was very familiar with the route so that she would never have driven on the left hand lane which would have taken her away from her destination. The driver of the private car and two passengers in the bus did put her upon that lane. One of the passengers said that she swerved into the lane on her right, so did the driver of the private car. The Magistrate was fully justified in accepting their evidence. It may have been inherently improbable that the applicant, an experienced bus driver, would have found herself driving in the wrong lane. The version she gave ? of the car somehow driving into the side of her bus on a clear road ? was equally improbable. These were matters the Magistrate had weighed.

3. The applicant has not shown that it is in any way arguable that a substantial and grave injustice may have occurred and this application is dismissed.