HKSAR v. MUSHTAQ IMRAN ALI

DCCC 1046/2018

[2019] HKDC 1416

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 1046 OF 2018

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REASONS FOR VERDICT

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1.  The defendant is facing one count of wounding with intent, contrary to section 17(a) of the Offences against the Person Ordinance, Cap 212.

2.  He has denied the offence.

Undisputed Facts

3.  The undisputed material facts of the case are as follows:-

(a)  Rashid Zafar Ghori (PW1) is a Pakistani Form 8 holder. He came to know Mushtag Imran Ali (defendant) when they were both detained at the Castle Peak Immigration Centre about 10 years ago. They stayed in contact after their release and would drink together. In or around 2016, PW1 came to know an Indian male Mangu in one drinking session with the defendant in Yuen Long.

(b)  PW1 had introduced the defendant and Mangu to his wife.

(c)  At 2:30 am on 27 August 2018, PW1 together with his wife and his daughter, were inside Room LK5, Ground Floor, No 430, Sun Fung Wai, Tuen Mun, New Territories (the Flat).

(d)  PW1 was examined by a doctor in Tuen Mun Hospital at 4:09 am on 27 August 2018 and was found to have a 10 cm laceration wound with active bleeding over his left palm, but the distal neurovascular status of his left hand was intact. The mode of injury was compatible with sharp trauma.

(e)  PW1 underwent emergency operation on the same day at the said hospital and was discharged on the following day. He was found to have a 6 cm laceration over his left palm and a 1 cm laceration over the ulnar aspect of his left index finger. X-ray showed no obvious fracture. Wound exploration showed skin laceration with no injury of underlying structures.

(f)  The defendant, who is also a Form 8 holder, was arrested on 2 September 2018.

(g)  In a properly held Identification Parade, PW1 identified the defendant as being one of the assailants who had attacked him with a kitchen knife.

(h)  Towards the end of the trial, the parties further agreed that the defendant was the informant in a report received at 9:18 pm on 2 September 2018 by the police of a case of assault which had occurred at the Flat home address.

4.  It should be noted that there is a further piece of fact set out in paragraph 2 of the Admitted Facts signed by both parties and exhibited as P4 which says, “PW1 had introduced the defendant and Mangu to his wife.  He had also invited them to have drinks and chat at his home.”  However, PW1 in his evidence denied having invited them to his home.  I shall return to this conflict later.

Prosecution Case

5.  Prosecution say that the defendant together with Mangu, unlawfully and maliciously wounded PW1 with intent to do him grievous bodily harm at the Flat on 27 August 2018.

6.  Apart from PW1, the prosecution called one other witness to give evidence namely, DPC 11464 (PW2), and tendered DPC 15157 (PW3) for cross-examination.

PW1

7.  PW1 confirmed in his evidence in chief that he had come from Pakistan and was a Form 8 holder.  About 10 years ago when he was detained in the Castle Peak Immigration Centre, he came to know the defendant.  They kept in contact after their release from the immigration centre.  Sometimes he would have drinks with the defendant.  Around 2016, during a drinking session with the defendant, he came to know an Indian male called Mangu.  He said they used to meet for chats and drinks, but he had never invited the defendant and Mangu to his home. 

8.  PW1 said he had had a good relationship with the defendant in the past. However, the defendant wanted to have a “wrong relationship” with his wife.  He said the defendant’s girlfriend had come to him and shown him her mobile phone with his wife’s pictures “and everything” on it.  Upon checking his wife’s mobile phone, he saw photos of the defendant on it. 

9.  When he asked his wife about her relationship with the defendant, she did not give him any response. 

10.  On the other hand, he said in chief that had never talked to the defendant about his relationship with his wife.

11.  On the night of 27 August 2018, while he was using the toilet in his home, he heard someone knocking on the main door.  After his wife opened the main door, he heard the defendant asking for him.  After opening the toilet door, PW1 found the defendant and Mangu right outside the toilet. 

12.  Mangu grabbed hold of PW1’s arm with both hands and pulled him out of the toilet.  When PW1 was just outside the toilet, the defendant, who was holding a chopper in his right hand, raised the chopper and brought it down towards his face.  PW1 managed to block the attack by grabbing hold of the chopper’s blade with his left hand and pulling it out of the defendant’s hand. In the course of doing this, his hand got injured.  There was no more attack after he had snatched the chopper from the defendant.

13.  When asked how he got hold of the chopper when it was coming down towards his face, he demonstrated with Exhibit P6 which is a piece of paper folded in such a way that it has a width of 3.5 inches which, according to PW1, was the width of the blade of the chopper. 

14.  Treating P6 as the chopper, PW1’s first demonstration showed him wrapping his thumb around the cutting edge of the chopper while his other 4 fingers were closed around the other edge (the spine) of the blade.  He said he held the blade in the same way from the moment it landed on his palm during the attack up to the time when he snatched it out of the defendant’s hand.

15.  He later gave a second demonstration showing the cutting edge of the blade running along the length of his left middle finger down the length of his palm, with his thumb and index finger placed on one side of the blade while his ring and little fingers were placed on the other side of the blade.  However, he later said that he was holding the chopper in his left hand as shown in his first demonstration.

16.  After he had snatched the chopper from the defendant, Mangu in turn snatched the chopper from him and then ran out of the house with it, while the defendant remained inside. 

17.  He said after Mangu returned from having discarded the chopper, Mangu said to him that he, Mangu, had made a mistake coming here with the defendant. At more or less the same time, the defendant said to Mangu, “Let’s pull him out.  We should kill him.”  The two of them then started pulling him, but PW1 was able to hold fast so he managed to stay inside his flat.

18.  In the meantime, at PW1’s behest, his wife made a report to the police, who arrived about 10 minutes after the report was made.

19.  The defendant and Mangu eventually left his house about 2 to 3 minutes before the police arrived.  PW1 had tried to prevent the defendant from leaving, but he did not succeed as his hand was injured and was bleeding.

20.  He said he went out to the main door to meet and talk to the arriving police officers, and his wounds were subsequently wrapped up in that area by the ambulancemen who arrived about 2 to 3 minutes after the police did.  He pointed at the bloodstains on and around the doormat outside his main door shown in photograph 6 of P1 as being the area where his wounds were attended to by the ambulancemen.

21.  He also said the bloodstains on the ground and on the wall shown in Photographs 3 and 4 were stains from his own blood.  He said this was the wall on the left hand side of his Flat as shown on P2A (English translation of P2).

22.  PW1 said the night the incident happened was the first time the defendant had been to his home.  He said the defendant had got his address from his wife. 

23.  PW1 said he didn’t know why the incident happened.  However, he did say that the chopping incident occurred after being told by his wife that she had told the defendant that PW1 was aware of their relationship.

24.  He confirmed that from the time of the attack up to the time when the police took the pictures which are Exhibits P1(3)-(7), his flat hadn’t been cleaned up, as he had expressly told his wife not to do so before police arrival.

25.  He denied having a girlfriend called Ocha or having a child with this girlfriend.  He also denied giving the defendant’s phone number to his wife so that if his wife got suspicious that he might be meeting with his girlfriend, she could call the defendant who was expected to tell his wife that her husband was with him.

PW2

26.  PW2 was one of the investigating officers.  The photographs in P1 and P3 were taken by him.  When asked to show where the blood-stained wall shown in photographs 3 and 4 of P1 was in relation to the sketch of the Flat P2 & P2A, this witness made a drawing on a piece of paper and attached it to the right side of a copy of P2.  The result was marked Exhibit P2B and it showed this wall running parallel to the Flat’s wall which appeared on the right side of P2, ie the Flat’s wall adjoining the cabinet.  Between these two walls was an alley which provided access to and from the Flat.

27.  This witness explained that initial enquiries from PW1’s neighbours, none of whom were eye-witnesses, disclosed that the incident might have been an attack by debt-collectors on PW1 who owed them money.  However, he pointed out that such a view was based on hearsay information provided by the neighbours at a time when he had not had the opportunity of talking to PW1.

PW3

28.  PW3 was another investigating officer.  He said initially he had tried but failed to locate PW1 for enquiries.  He then left a message with a woman called “Oka” who claimed herself to be PW1’s girlfriend that the police were looking for him.

29.  The Prosecution closed their case at the conclusion of PW3’s evidence.

Defence Case

DW1

30.  The defendant elected to give evidence after a “Case to answer” ruling was made.  He was the only witness for the Defence.

31.  The defendant said he had come to know PW1 who was a fellow Form 8 holder around 8 years ago and the two of them became good friends.  He had been to PW1’s home for 2 to 3 times, but they met mostly in a restaurant near the route 68M bus stop in Yuen Long.

32.  They had come to know Mangu at more or less the same time, which was around 3 years prior to this incident.

33.  He knew that PW1 and his wife Sofi did not have a harmonious relationship.  The couple had fights over PW1’s relationship with another woman.  PW1 would sometimes beat his wife, and would sometimes take things from home for sale to get money to buy drugs.  

34.  The defendant said PW1 had an Indonesian girlfriend called Ocha with whom PW1 had a baby.  He had been introduced to Ocha and the baby by PW1 when they met in a restaurant. 

35.  PW1 had given to his wife the defendant’s phone number so that she could call the defendant to confirm that PW1 was with him even though in fact PW1 was with Ocha.  PW1 had also given his wife’s number to the defendant.  Despite what PW1 wanted him to say to his wife when she called about PW1’s whereabouts, the defendant said he had never covered up for PW1.

36.  There came a time when the defendant grew concerned about PW1’s wife’s calls to him, which could be as many as 3 to 4 calls a month.  He felt that PW1 might not like that.  However, PW1 never scolded him for those telephone contacts with his wife.

37.  He was aware that PW1 owed other people money, and that he would sell things from his home to get money to buy drugs.

38.  The defendant said he was home sleeping in his own room in the early hours of 27 August 2018.  He remembered coming home on 26 August around 8 pm, went to bed around 11 pm and got up around 11 to 12 o’clock the following day.  He could not remember what he did during the day on 26 August.

39.  He denied that he had gone to PW1’s home to chop PW1 on the day in question.  He did not know why PW1 was accusing him of this crime.  He surmised that PW1 may not have liked his telephone contacts with his wife.

40.  He said he had met PW1 briefly a few days after the date of the attack. He did not notice the condition of PW1’s hand, nor did he detect any hostility displayed by PW1 who made no effort or attempt to restrain him.

41.  He said on the day of his arrest, he was the one who called the police for noise disturbance made by a Nepalese boy who had drunk too much at his home and had become out of control.  He himself was arrested by the arriving police after they had checked his identity.

42.  According to Admitted Facts P7, the defendant was the informant of a report to the police in relation to an assault taking place at the defendant’s home address on the night of his arrest. 

Discussion

43.  Although not set out as an admission, there does not seem to be any dispute that PW1 was subjected to an assault on the night in question, and he got injured by a sharp object during the assault.

44.  In denying that it was the defendant who attacked and wounded PW1, the defence countered the prosecution case by setting up an alibi and by strongly challenging PW1’s credibility and reliability.

45.  The defence submitted that PW1 was not an honest and reliable witness. On the other hand, the defendant’s evidence was believable and dependable.

46.  I shall deal with the defendant’s evidence first.  His evidence of his being at home sleeping at the time of PW1’s assault sounds hollow and lacking in substance.  He was not able to say what he was doing on 26 August, save that he returned home about 8 to 9 pm, and went to bed around 11 pm.  He could not remember the route number of the bus he took to go home, or what he did after returning home. 

47.  He admitted that he learned of PW1’s allegation against him when he was arrested inside the police station on 2 September.  However, he did not try to recall what he did on the night PW1 was attacked.  He claimed that there was no need to do so to protect himself as there was nothing special about that day. In the face of such serious allegations against him, I find this seemingly carefree and unconcerned attitude hard to accept.

48.  I also find it hard to accept his evidence that he had seen PW1 sometime between the date of the attack and the date of his arrest, and yet had failed to notice if PW1’s hand was injured, and that such an encounter failed to evoke any hostility or any attempt on PW1’s part to try to restrain or detain him, given that PW1 had already given a statement to the police on 28 August 2018 naming the defendant as the culprit, and that PW1’s hand must still have been bandaged by the time of the alleged encounter.

49.  However, my doubts and reservations about the defendant’s credibility do not mean that he is necessarily guilty.  He does not have to prove his innocence.

50.  It is the prosecution’s job to prove the defendant’s guilt by producing cogent and credible evidence so that the court can be sure that he is guilty of the offence.

51.  I shall now examine the evidence given by PW1, whose credibility came under heavy attack by the defence.

52.  Under cross-examination, various inconsistencies between what was stated in his police statements and what he said in his evidence, and between what he said on the same subject-matter at different stages of his evidence, were elicited from him. 

53.  One such inconsistency relates to the matter of whether he had invited the defendant and Mangu to his home for drinks.  It was pointed out to him by prosecuting counsel during his evidence in chief that it was set out in the admitted facts that he had made such invitations.  However, the witness chose to stay with his version of no invitation at all.

54.  About this matter of invitation, in the face of an admitted fact which goes contrary to what he said about it in his evidence, I feel bound to find against him.

55.  On the same subject-matter, when defence counsel pointed out to him that he mentioned inviting the defendant and Mangu to his home in his statement dated 28 August 2018, he insisted that what was recorded in the statement was incorrect.  He attributed the error to his lack of understanding of the languages used in the recording of the statement, and he also put the blame on the statement-taking officer for failing to record accurately what he was saying.

56.  This was not the only instance that he put the blame on the police for failing to record what he had allegedly told them.  As regards his evidence about a chance meeting he had with the defendant’s girlfriend during which she not only told him about the defendant and his wife but showed him pictures of the two of them together, he admitted that this meeting was not mentioned in his police statements.

57.  He claimed however that he had told the police about it in Tuen Mun Police Station about one-and-a-half weeks before coming to court.  He then said that the police told him not to add anything to what he had already told them. Later he corrected himself by saying that no police officer had asked him not to put it in his statement – they just did not write it down for him.

58.  Another instance of his allegation of police neglect concerns his evidence as to whether he had said anything to the defendant when the latter was trying to chop him.  In his evidence in chief, he said he did not say anything to the defendant.  Under cross-examination, he said he had asked the defendant why he was doing that, and he had also pointed out to the defendant that he had done wrong.  When it was pointed out to him that none of what he allegedly said to the defendant appeared in his police statements, he explained that he did tell the police, but they failed to record them in his statements.

59.  With regard to the relationship between his wife and the defendant, PW1 said he had asked his wife about it, but his wife remained silent.  Under cross-examination, he agreed that he did not mention talking to his wife about her relationship with the defendant in his police statements.

60.  On the other hand, he said in his evidence in chief that he had not talked to the defendant about the latter’s relationship with his wife.  When cross-examined about this, he agreed that he did say in his police statement that he had scolded the defendant over the phone and asked the defendant not to approach his wife again. 

61.  There is also confusion in PW1’s evidence about the sequence of events constituting his being chopped and his being pulled out by his assailants.  In chief, he said he was chopped after he was pulled out of the toilet.  Under cross-examination, he said he was chopped before he was pulled out.  He eventually said when he was attacked, he was right next to the toilet door.  He said Mangu was grabbing hold of his right hand with both of his hands and was pulling him out of the toilet while the defendant was attacking him.

62.  He later clarified that the chopping took place when he was inside the toilet, but his snatching of the chopper from the defendant followed by Mangu’s snatching of it from his hand occurred when they were outside the toilet.  He said he came out of the toilet when he was bleeding and he asked his wife to report the matter to the police.

63.  I shall return later to how he allegedly reacted to the act of chopping.

64.  PW1 later added that it was the defendant who instructed Mangu to snatch the chopper from him.  However, he made no mention of this in his police statement.

65.  Mangu came back inside the Flat in about 5 to 7 seconds’ time without the chopper.  PW1 was then holding the defendant by his shirt.  Mangu then told PW1 that he, Mangu, had made a mistake coming with the defendant, whereupon PW1 told Mangu that the latter had indeed made a mistake in light of what the defendant had done to him.  PW1 agreed that this exchange between him and Mangu was not mentioned in any of his police statements.

66.  PW1 further said that when Mangu came back, he was already outside the toilet grabbing hold of the defendant’s shirt.  The defendant then said to Mangu, “Let’s pull him out.  We should kill him”.  The two of them then started pulling him.  But they failed to pull him out.

67.  PW1’s evidence about the sequence of events and about the things allegedly said between the three of them after Mangu had allegedly returned to the flat following his disposal of the chopper do not make much sense.

68.  If Mangu, after throwing away the chopper, did say to PW1, “My friend, I made a mistake by coming with him”, it is obvious that he felt contrite about his being a party to a joint venture in the wounding of PW1.  Such an attitude certainly does not sit well with his acting in concert with the defendant in trying to pull PW1 out in order to have him killed.  This casts doubt as to whether the alleged conversation and pulling did occur.

69.  Moreover, if PW1 had already been injured in the left hand, and was only able to grab hold of the defendant with just his right hand, and both the defendant and Mangu were trying to pull him out, I fail to see how the two of them could have failed to pull PW1 either out of the toilet, or out of the main door, given that it was a tug-of-war between two healthy men on the one hand and an injured man on the other.

70.  On top of that, I fail to see the logic in the assertion that it was after Mangu had thrown away the chopper that the defendant allegedly said to Mangu, “…we should kill him”.  If the defendant and/or Mangu had wanted to kill him, or at least to do more serious harm to him, why did they wait till after the chopper - a potentially lethal weapon -  had been discarded?

71.  In an attempt to clarify where the defendant and Mangu were trying to pull him out of, PW1 initially said they were trying to pull him out of the flat through the main door.  Subsequently he said this was not correct; they were trying to pull him out of the toilet, since at that time he was standing on the ledge across the toilet entrance.

72.  He said all these conversations took place at the same time as when he was asking his wife to make a report to the police, who arrived at their house in about 10 minutes’ time. 

73.  He said although the defendant and Mangu were both aware that the police had been called, they still remained in the flat and they left only about 2 to 3 minutes before the police arrived. 

74.  If that was indeed the case, one wonders what they were trying to achieve by not leaving immediately upon knowing that a police report had been made and that the police were on their way to PW1’s flat.  There is no evidence that they tried to hurt PW1 some more during their stay. 

75.  The above inconsistencies and illogicalities have the effect of detracting PW1’s general credibility and reliability. 

76.  Evidence on how PW1 physically reacted to the attack and on where the attack actually took place further put PW1’s reliability to the test.

77.  I shall now deal with his alleged reaction to the alleged attack.  PW1 said he managed to block with his left hand the chopper wielded by the defendant who was bringing it down towards his face in an “up to down” chopping motion. He said he managed not only to grab hold of the chopper with his left hand so that it would not land on his face, he even managed to snatch it out of the defendant’s grasp.

78.  With the aid of P6, he demonstrated how he was holding the chopper’s blade from the moment it landed on his left palm up to the time he snatched it from the defendant.

79.  The demonstration showed the blade resting sideways on his palm, while he had his thumb wrapped around the cutting edge of the blade, and his other four fingers wrapped around the spine of the blade.

80.  He said he got injured while he was blocking off the blow by grabbing hold of the blade of the chopper with his left hand, and then snatching it out of the defendant’s hand.

81.  He confirmed that there was just one single blow with the chopper.

82.  If that was the case, one would expect the cutting edge of the blade to have cut him more or less horizontally across the width of his palm, with the cut wound starting from the web space between the thumb and the index finger.  And there should be just one wound.

83.  However, the two photographs in P3 ie photographs 8 & 9 show altogether 4 wounds on his left palm. 

84.  Photograph 8 shows 3 wounds: i) a long stitched-up wound running vertically along the length of the palm from roughly the proximal end of the middle finger to the ball of the muscle at the base of the thumb (the vertical wound), ii) a much shorter wound about the width of a finger running horizontally across the top of his palm near the proximal end of the middle finger, and iii) a still shorter wound running horizontally across the lower part of the palm, a short distance from the end of the vertical wound.

85.  Photograph 9 shows the above 3 wounds plus one small wound on the inner side of his left index finger.  This should be the “1cm laceration over the ulnar aspect of his left index finger” set out in paragraph 5 of Admitted Facts P4.

86.  The location and the number of his wounds do not support the manner in which he allegedly grabbed hold of the blade during the attack.  If there was just one blow, how did it come about that he had 4 discernable wounds? If he had held the chopper in the manner demonstrated in his first demonstration, the flat side of the blade would be facing his palm, and this part of the blade could not have caused any cuts or lacerations, not to mention a cut running vertically down the middle of his palm.

87.  This leaves a doubt as to how exactly his wounds were inflicted. 

88.  There are also problems with the prosecution evidence as to where exactly he was attacked.  If, as PW1 said in his evidence, he was wounded when he was chopped while he was at or near the doorway of the toilet, one would expect more than a few dots of bloodstain in the whole toilet, with just one drop of bloodstain on the ledge at its doorway, as photograph 5 of P1 shows.  

89.  Moreover, if as he said in the later part of his evidence, he was lying on the floor in the middle of his flat while waiting for police and ambulance people to arrive, and he was at that time bleeding heavily, one would expect a certain amount of blood on the floor.

90.  However, there is not a single photograph of that part of his flat. Unless the photographer was extremely derelict in his duties, one would expect shots to be taken of any bloodstains present in that part of the flat.

91.  The fact that there is no notation at all marking the presence of bloodstains in that part of his flat on the sketch P2/P2A, which was produced pursuant to an admitted fact, together with the absence of photographs showing bloodstains in that area, lead to the conclusion that there were no bloodstains there.

92.  In their closing submissions, the prosecution sought to say that perhaps the absence of blood was due to the blood flow gathering on PW1’s body while he was lying on the floor.  The problem with this submission is that it was totally unsupported by evidence.  There was no evidence on how PW1 was lying on the floor, how his hands were positioned vis-à-vis his body and the floor.

93.  In this connection, it should be noted that with regard to where he was when the ambulance people arrived, he said at first that he went out to the main door to meet with the police who arrived a few minutes ahead of the ambulance people, and it was while he was speaking to the police near the main door that the ambulance people arrived, who then proceeded to wrap up his wounds at the main door.  He was even able to say with reference to photograph 6 of P1 that the two whitish objects by the side of the doormat were gloves used by the ambulanceman while administering to his wounds.

94.  It is immediately apparent that this account is quite different from his later evidence that he was picked up from the floor of his flat by the ambulance people. 

95.  Another observation about bloodstains is the presence of quite a copious amount of them on the wall shown in photographs 3 and 4 of P1 and on the ground adjoining the wall. 

96.  Regarding the location of this wall, I accept as correct the representation drawn by PW2 in the course of his evidence resulting in sketch Exhibit P2B.  I do not accept that this bloodstained wall is the external side of the wall adjoining the bed, as pointed out by PW1 in his evidence.

97.  PW1’s explanation was that the bloodstains got there when he was being wheeled out to the ambulance while his hand was still bleeding.

98.  I find this explanation hard to accept, because his wounds had by that time been wrapped up and bandaged by the ambulance people.  They were no longer open wounds bleeding unchecked.

99.  Even if the wrapping and bandaging could not completely stanch the bleeding, the presence of such a copious amount of blood spatter on the wall (some of which take the form of 2 arcs) and blood drops on the ground seem extremely unlikely to have been caused by a person with a bandaged wounded hand being moved along the alley.

100.  If he was still bleeding with blood seeping out of the bandage while being carried in a wheelchair to the ambulance, and he had not stopped on the way, one would expect any blood drops on the ground to be in more or less a linear pattern along the left side of the alley ie the side close to the wall adjoining the kitchen of his flat, through which he was being taken out of to get to the ambulance.  However, neither the sketch nor the photographs show the presence of blood in that part of the alley.

101.  More significantly, if he was being wheeled away from his flat towards the awaiting ambulance, and the exit route consisted of taking a left turn from the main door, then another left turn round the corner of his flat to come onto the alley, the bloodstained wall shown in photographs 3 and 4 would be on his right hand side, the side of his uninjured hand.  If his injured left hand was indeed still bleeding on his way to the ambulance, how did it come about that it was the wall on the other side of him that got spattered with blood, and not the wall to his left, which should have been much closer to his injured left hand?

102.  As the defence submitted, the amount of bloodstains on the wall shown in photograph 4 is comparatively much more that those present in or near the toilet which, according to PW1, was the location of the attack.  If the events constituting the assault and PW1’s care and treatment at scene had indeed unfolded in the way he described, one would expect more blood in or around the toilet, but no blood on that wall.

103.  These evidence cast a doubt not only on where but also on how exactly PW1 was attacked that night.

104.  There is then the question of the identity of the assailants.  Although PW1 insisted in his evidence that his attackers were the defendant and Mangu, given the quality of his evidence as mentioned above, and given that it is his words against the defendant’s as far as the defendant’s alleged involvement is concerned, I have to warn myself to be particularly careful with PW1’s accusations against the defendant.

105.  I must say I cannot be satisfied that PW1 was telling the whole truth on the material aspects of this case.

106.  Moreover, there is an admitted fact that says the defendant was the complainant in a police report made on the day of his arrest about certain incidents at his home address.  If he was indeed one of the attackers on the night of PW1’s attack, it seems unlikely that he would be drawing himself to the attention of the police by making a report to them just a week after attacking PW1 who surely would have no difficulty identifying him.

107.  Given that apart from PW1’s own words, there is nothing else to connect the defendant to this incident, and given my considerable doubts on PW1’s veracity, I cannot be satisfied so that I am sure that the defendant was involved, as alleged by PW1.

108.  The inevitable conclusion is that the prosecution have failed to prove their case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.  I find the defendant not guilty of the offence charged.