R. v. CHAN WAI KIN

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1994, No. 462
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Liu, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. The applicant faced two charges before His Honour Judge Yung in the District Court: one for trafficking in a dangerous drug and the other for possession of apparatus fit and intended for the injection of a dangerous drug. Having been found guilty on both charges he now seeks leave to appeal against conviction in respect to the 1st charge only. The prosecution evidence was that the applicant had been stopped and searched by a police officer who then found 60 packets of heroin and two syringes on his person. On being taken back to the police station and cautioned he admitted in a series of answers to questions that he had been trafficking in the 60 packets of heroin.

2. In his personally drafted grounds of appeal he complains that the judge was biased against him and wrongly rejected his testimony that the drugs were for his own consumption; that he was convicted on the evidence of one police officer alone; that there was no evidence of trafficking; that he was coerced into making a statement to the police; that he signed the statement in order that he could receive methadone treatment to relieve his "irresistible usage for drugs"; and that since medical reports showed that he was an addict his evidence that the drugs were for his personal consumption ought to have been believed.

3. The prosecution evidence was that when he was arrested, he made a clean breast of his guilt to the police. Having heard all the evidence as to the taking of the statement the judge was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the applicant had voluntarily given answers to all questions asked of him by the statement taking officer. Having come to that conclusion the judge was perfectly entitled also to conclude that, whether the applicant was an addict or not, he had trafficked in the drugs to which the 1st charge related.

4. Nothing that the applicant has told this court leads us to think that there is any substance in the grounds that he has advanced. There is no merit in the applicant's application which is therefore dismissed.