THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION v. ZHENG LIANG XIN

1996 No. 507

(Criminal)

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H E A D N O T E

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[Where the issue of provocation on a charge of murder is left to the jury, the jury should be directed (in addition to the direction set out in D.P.P. v. Camplin [1978] A.C. 705 at p.718 D-F) to consider whether there was anything in the defendant's personal history or in the circumstances in which he was placed at the time of the allegedly provoking conduct which could have affected the gravity of the provocation on an ordinary person of the defendant's age and sex. However, this direction is unnecessary if there is no evidential basis for asserting that there was something in the defendant's personal history or in the circumstances in which he was placed at the time which could have affected the gravity of the provocation on such a person.]

1996 No. 507

(Criminal)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF HONG KONG

COURT OF APPEAL

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J U D G M E N T

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Keith J. (giving the judgment of the court):

INTRODUCTION

1. On 1st November 1995, a man scavenging for scrap iron amongst refuse in Fanling made a gruesome find. He came across a pair of human legs in a rubbish bag. Scars on the legs enabled them to be identified

as those of Madam Wong Miu-kuen who had disappeared two days earlier. On 4th September 1996, following a trial before V. Bokhary J. and a jury, the Applicant was convicted of her murder. He had pleaded not guilty. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He now applies for leave to appeal against his conviction. Since there are arguable grounds of appeal, we grant the Applicant leave to appeal, and we shall call him the Appellant from now on.

THE FACTS IN OUTLINE

2. The Appellant and Madam Wong worked together at a restaurant in Tai Po. It was not disputed that on 30th October 1995 Madam Wong had died at the hands of the Appellant. Nor was it disputed that the Appellant had subsequently dismembered her body and had disposed of her remains. What was in dispute were the circumstances in which she had died.

3. The Appellant is in his early 30s. His wife and two children are in China. He came to Hong Kong in 1993 and was due to return to China on 3rd November 1995. He had finished working at the restaurant on 28th October, and his evidence was that on the afternoon of 30th October he met Madam Wong, with whom he had become friendly, for a snack. She offered to help him complete his packing. They went back to his home that afternoon. His evidence was that while they were there she made it clear that she wanted to sleep with him. He claimed that she took off some of her clothes and sat on his lap.

4. His evidence as to what happened then was summarised by the judge in her summing-up as follows:

"The victim forced herself upon him. He pushed her away. She bumped her head against the metal edge of the bunk-bed and became unconscious. He tried to revive her. She was still breathing, but remained unconscious. So he waited - did not seek help for her but just waited. After waiting for about 30 to 40 minutes, he again tried to revive her. But this time he saw blood around her head and found that she had gone stiff and cold and was no longer breathing. Afraid that he would be blamed or punished for her death, he chopped her body into pieces and disposed of the pieces. As he was about to chop her body into pieces, he saw her bracelet, necklace and ring. Later he decided to keep them. On the following day, he found $3,400.00 in her handbag and he decided to keep that too."

Accordingly, the Appellant's case was that Madam Wong's death was an accident. He had had no intention of harming her at all. He had done no more than push her away. When he decided to dismember her body, it was plain that she had already died.

5. The evidence on which the prosecution relied to refute the Appellant's version of events consisted, for the most part, of various admissions which the Appellant was alleged to have made when he was interviewed by police officers following his arrest and in the course of a re-enactment of the events which led up to Madam Wong's death. Those admissions were said to amount to a confession by the Appellant that he had intended to kill her and had deliberately chopped her to death because she had threatened to accuse him of raping her if he refused to sleep with her. They were also said to contradict his evidence that he believed that she was dead when he began to dismember her body.

THE VOIR DIRE

6. The admissibility of the records of those interviews, and of the transcript of what was said in the course of the re-enactment (which was recorded on video), was disputed. A voir dire was held. The Appellant did not give evidence in the voir dire, but the case put by his counsel on his behalf in cross-examination of the police officers was that the Appellant had been seriously assaulted by the police officers who were investigating Madam Wong's death while the Appellant was in police custody. That allegation was denied.

7. The evidence on which the defence relied in support of the Appellant's claim that he had been assaulted was the presence of a number of bruises and other marks on the Appellant's body. They were seen by a forensic pathologist, Dr. Yu Hon-wai, who examined the Appellant while he was still in police custody and before he had been formally charged with the murder of Madam Wong. The Appellant complained to Dr. Yu that he had been assaulted by police officers, and Dr. Yu related that complaint to the police officer who was then escorting the Appellant. That officer did not report the Appellant's complaint to his superiors. The reason he gave for not doing so was that he knew the complaint was untrue, and that he had advised the Appellant that if he had any complaints he should make them to officers independent of the investigation.

8. Dr. Yu's opinion was that the Appellant's injuries could have been caused within the preceding two days (i.e. since the Appellant's arrest), but that he would not be surprised if they had been inflicted 3-4 days before. In addition, the Appellant had described to Dr. Yu how he had been assaulted, and Dr. Yu's opinion was that the Appellant's injuries were not consistent with his allegations. A different opinion was expressed by another forensic pathologist, Dr. Bey Swan-lip. He believed that the bruises on the Appellant were more likely to be nearer to one day, rather than four days, old, and he considered that the Appellant's injuries were consistent with his allegations of assault. However, he had never examined the Appellant, and his opinion was based on Dr. Yu's notes.

9. In ruling that the records of the interviews and the transcript of the re-enactment were admissible, the judge said:

"Having seen and heard all the witnesses, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the prosecution witnesses are reliable. No defence evidence or argument caused me to doubt their reliability. The only witness for the defence is a doctor, whose honesty I accept, but his evidence causes me no doubt of the prosecution's case in the voir dire."

The criticism of the judge is that this ruling did not adequately resolve the issues raised in the voir dire. We reject this criticism. If the judge had concluded that the Appellant may have been assaulted while in police custody, it is inevitable that she would have ruled the records of the interviews and the transcript of the re-enactment inadmissible. It would have been impossible in those circumstances for her to exclude the possibility that the assaults on him had, at the very least, contributed to him making the various admissions attributed to him. The fact that she ruled the records of the interviews and the transcript of the re-enactment admissible meant that she must have concluded that what Dr. Bey extracted from Dr. Yu's notes did not undermine Dr. Yu's evidence about the lack of consistency between the Appellant's complaints and his actual injuries, and that the Appellant's injuries were inflicted prior to his arrest.

10. The same applies to the fact that the police officer escorting the Appellant did not inform his superiors about the allegations which the Appellant had made to Dr. Yu. The fact that the judge ruled the records of the interviews and the transcript of the re-enactment admissible meant that she did not regard that fact as undermining the evidence of the police officers that the Appellant had not been assaulted while in police custody.

11. In short, there is no reason whatever to suppose that the judge did not resolve the issues raised in the voir dire. She was not obliged to give reasons for her ruling, and it cannot be inferred from the language of her ruling that there were issues which she did not adequately address.

12. Having concluded that such admissions as the Appellant had made had been made "freely and voluntarily and free from any oppression or anything else which affects their admissibility", the judge considered whether she should exclude the records of interview and the transcript of the re-enactment in the exercise of her discretion. She decided that there was no basis on which she ought to exclude them. That decision is criticised as well. The basis of the criticism is that there were repeated breaches of one of the directions in the Rules and Directions for the Questioning of Suspects and the Taking of Statements promulgated by the Secretary for Security. The direction was 8(a)(v), which reads:

"A person who has ... answered questions under caution is entitled to a copy of such ... record of interview and this should be supplied as soon as possible after each interview. The only exception is where hindrance is reasonably likely to be caused to the administration of justice. If it is decided to deny a person a copy of his ... record of interview, ... no further interview should be conducted with that person until a copy of the ... record of interview has been made available ... To deny a person a copy of his ... record of interview is a serious matter ..."

13. In all, the Appellant was interviewed 13 times. Most of these interviews were formal (for example, asking the Appellant whether he wanted a lawyer present and whether he was willing to take part in a reconstruction of the events which led to Madam Wong's death), but some of the interviews were very important, because it was in the course of them that the Appellant was alleged to have made the damaging admissions on which the prosecution relied. And yet the Appellant was not provided with copies of the records of any of those interviews until shortly before he was charged with Madam Wong's murder. The interviewing officer's explanation for that was that he wanted "to finish the investigation with him" first. However, he did not suggest that, had he complied with direction 8(a)(v), there was a reasonable likelihood of the administration of justice being hindered in any way.

14. We do not wish to minimise the importance of direction 8(a)(v). Its purpose is to ensure that suspects in police custody have a clear recollection of what they have already told the police. Apart from anything else, it gives the suspect a better opportunity subsequently to inform the interviewing officer that he wishes to correct, alter or add to what he has already said. However, if no injustice has in fact occurred as a result of a failure to comply with direction 8(a)(v), it is open to a judge to admit the record of interview despite the breach of the direction. In this case, there was no suggestion in the voir dire that the Appellant had in fact been disadvantaged by the breach of the direction, and in those circumstances we can discern no basis on which to interfere with the exercise of the judge's discretion on the topic.

15. We should add that we see no basis whatever for the criticism of the judge in the Amended Perfected Grounds of Appeal that she appears implicitly to have accepted that the direction does not apply unless the interviewing officer has "decided to deny" a suspect a copy of his record of interview. The passage in the transcript of the evidence which is said to support that implication does no such thing: the judge was merely reading out loud the terms of direction 8(a)(v).

16. In conclusion, therefore, we have not discerned anything in the voir dire proceedings which supports the first ground of appeal, namely that the judge erred in law and in fact in ruling that the records of interview and the transcript of what was said during the reconstruction of the events which led to Madam Wong's death were admissible in evidence.

THE CAUSE OF DEATH

17. A crucial issue at the trial was whether or not Madam Wong was alive or dead when the Appellant administered the first blow with the chopper. If she was already dead, the Appellant could not have been convicted of her murder. The judge is criticised for not making that clear to the jury. We reject that criticism. There are a number of passages in the summing-up which would have left the jury in no doubt that the Appellant had to be acquitted of murder if the jury thought that Madam Wong may already have been dead by the time the Appellant took the chopper to her. In one particular passage, the judge made that clear in exemplary terms:

"What if the victim had forced herself upon the accused; he pushed her away without intending to kill her or cause her really serious injury; but she bumped her head against something and died as a result of that rather than of any chopping? If you think that may be how she died, then the accused cannot be convicted of murder."

18. On the factual question as to whether Madam Wong was alive or dead when the Appellant administered the first blow with the chopper, a forensic pathologist, Prof. Ansford, gave evidence. His evidence was that if a person's artery is severed while the person is alive, the blood will spurt out at a high velocity, and leave a distinctive pattern of splash marks. However, if a person's artery is severed after death, the blood will not spurt (because the heart is no longer pumping blood). Instead, the blood will well up out of the wound, and could be splattered by the subsequent wielding of the weapon which caused the artery to sever in the first place. In this case, Prof. Ansford had carefully examined the photographs taken of the scene, in particular the nature of the bloodstains there. He could find no sign of arterial spurting: he could only see signs of the splattering of blood, though it must be borne in mind that Prof. Ansford's evidence was based mainly on the photographs taken at the scene, which the Appellant admitted he had cleaned before the police arrived.

19. The criticism of the judge is that she failed to remind the jury of Prof. Ansford's evidence. However, this criticism does not take account of an important exchange between Prof. Ansford and the judge towards the end of his cross-examination:

"Q. Doctor, from your evidence, am I right to say that really from what we can see from all the photographs and from the evidence, you can't really tell one way or the other whether the person were dead or alive when he .. when she was chopped. That is the position, isn't it?

A. That is - that is correct.

Q. That is the position, isn't it?

A. Yes."

Indeed, during his evidence-in-chief, Prof. Ansford had said that he could not "negate the fact that she might have been alive" at the time. It is unnecessary to spell out Prof. Ansford's reasons for that concession, but the effect of his concession was that the absence of any sign of arterial spurting did not mean that Madam Wong must already have been dead when the Appellant administered the first blow with the chopper. In those circumstances, Prof. Ansford's evidence was inconclusive. It would not have enabled the jury to conclude, one way or the other, whether Madam Wong was alive or dead when the Appellant began to use the chopper on her. The most that could be said was that the absence of arterial spurting was consistent with Madam Wong already being dead, but it did not rule out the possibility that she was still alive. In those circumstances, it was open to the judge to conclude that no useful purpose would be served by reminding the jury of Prof. Ansford's evidence: since it was inconclusive, it was not probative one way or the other.

THE RECORDS OF INTERVIEW

20. In the course of her summing-up, the judge reviewed the records of interview at some length. A number of passages in the records were of considerable importance. In the 2nd record of interview, the Appellant is recorded as saying:

"I did not kill her on purpose. She took off all the clothes, held me in her arms, saying to go to bed with me to sleep. If I refused, then sued me for raping her. I was angry, so I took a chopper and chopped her to death."

Later in that interview, he is recorded as saying:

"She then took off all the clothes and again held me in her arms. I pushed her away. However, she said loudly that if (I) did not sleep with her, she would tell other people that I raped her. While saying so, she held me in her arms. I said I have already had a wife and children and could not do that. Thus I pushed her away with great force. It happened that her head bumped against the metal bar of the bunk beds; she fainted and fell onto the floor. Seeing that she did not move, I was very frightened at that time. Sitting there, (I) waited for her to wake up. I sat there for almost an hour and saw that she did not wake up. I was thinking that if she woke up, she would accuse me of having raped her. So I took a chopper and chopped her at the neck, chopping her to death."

A little later in that interview, he is recorded as saying:

"I chopped her neck with a chopper. Seeing that she had no breathing, (I) cut her head with the chopper using great force, then cut her arms, and finally cut her legs."

In the 9th record of interview, the Appellant is recorded as saying:

"After she fainted and fell down onto the ground, immediately I went up to hold her head and shook it sideways, left and right. At that time, (I) felt that she was still breathing. I shook her head several times, and saw that she showed no response; therefore (I) called her loudly, but saw that she did not move. I waited for a while. After a couple of minutes, (I) shook her head with my hands again but still no response. I did not pay heed to her any more and sat on the side of the bed ... After sitting for a while, I decided not to help her to come round because if (she) alleged that I raped her after she had come round, I would be very miserable; therefore I did not think of rescuing her."

Finally, the next two questions and answers were as follows:

"Q. After Wong Miu-kuen had fainted, what did you feel about the situation of her body?

A. When I shook her head, (I) felt that her body was still warm and had breathing; however she did not move.

Q. When you chopped her (Wong Miu-kuen) with a chopper, did you feel that she had died or not?

A. When I chopped her, (I) did not know whether (she) had died or not. Even if she had not died, I would chop her to death because I was afraid that after she came round, (she) would frame me for raping her."

21. The criticism which is levelled at the judge relates to a remark which she made shortly before she reviewed this evidence. What she had said was:

"If you are sure of the reliability of the records of interview and are sure that they are true statements made by the accused under caution, you would be entitled to take them as constituting a full confession by the accused to the offence for which he is being tried and convict him accordingly."

The criticism is as follows. In this passage, the judge was telling the jury that the records of interview amounted to a confession by the Appellant of all the ingredients of the charge of murder. However, if the Appellant was to be convicted of murder, the jury had to be sure that the Appellant knew that Madam Wong was alive when he began to chop her. It is said that the records of interview do not amount to a confession by the Appellant that he was aware of that. The complaint is that, in that respect, the judge overstated the position.

22. We do not agree. The judge was not telling the jury that the records amounted to a confession of all the ingredients of the charge of murder. The judge was telling the jury that it was open to the jury to conclude that that was what they amounted to. The words the judge used were: "... you would be entitled to take them as constituting a full confession". It is true that in some of the passages which the judge referred to (in particular, the last answer which we have quoted from the 9th interview) the Appellant said that he did not know whether Madam Wong had already died when he chopped her. However, it was nonetheless open to the jury to conclude from some of the other passages (in particular, the 1st passage which we have quoted from the 2nd interview) that the Appellant was confessing to having chopped her when he knew she was alive. The judge's summary of the effect of the records of interview, therefore, was not inaccurate; it was open to the jury, on the basis of some of the things which the Appellant was recorded as having said, to conclude that he had realised that Madam Wong was alive when he began to chop her.

THE BACKGROUND

23. The Appellant gave evidence in the trial. During his evidence-in-chief, he was questioned at considerable length about his personal background, his arrival in Hong Kong, his work at the restaurant, his relationship with Madam Wong, and the events of the day on which Madam Wong died, including how she had come to be in his home that afternoon. The criticism of the judge is that she did not remind the jury of this evidence. All she did was to summarise his evidence about what he claimed had happened after Madam Wong had taken off her clothes and sat on his lap.

24. We think that the summing-up would have been more complete if the judge had reminded the jury, if only in summary form, of the Appellant's version of the events which had led up to Madam Wong's visit to his home on the day of her death. However, we note that the judge directed the jury that if she omitted to mention evidence which they thought was important, they should take that evidence into account, even though she had not reminded them of it. We appreciate that such a direction cannot save a summing-up if the evidence which was omitted was so important that the jury did not get a balanced view of the evidence, or if the failure to remind the jury of the evidence meant that a cardinal line of defence was not placed before the jury. But there is no doubt that the jury was made aware by the judge in her summing-up of what the cardinal line of defence was - namely, that Madam Wong's death was an accident when he pushed her away, and that if she had not died as a result of banging her head against the edge of the bed, he did not realise that she was still alive when he administered the first blow with the chopper. Accordingly, we cannot say that the judge's failure to remind the jury of the Appellant's version of events prior to Madam Wong's visit to his home was a fatal flaw in the summing-up. In view of the detail of the Appellant's evidence, it is impossible to say that the jury would not have had the salient features of it in mind.

PROVOCATION

25. The defence of provocation was not relied on at the trial by the Appellant's counsel, Mr. John Mullick, who has continued to represent him on the appeal. That was understandable. It was likely to undermine the Appellant's case that Madam Wong's death was accidental. However, the judge decided to leave the issue of provocation to the jury. It is common ground that she was right to do so. In view of what the Appellant was recorded as saying in his interviews, there was clearly evidence on which the jury could have found that he had been provoked into killing Madam Wong because of his anger at her threat to accuse him of raping her if he did not sleep with her.

26. Section 4 of the Homicide Ordinance (Cap. 339) provides:

"Where on a charge of murder there is evidence on which the jury can find that the person charged was provoked (whether by things done or by things said or by both together) to lose his self-control, the question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable man do as he did shall be left to be determined by the jury; and in determining that question the jury shall take into account everything both done and said according to the effect which, in their opinion, it would have on a reasonable man."

Section 4 is in identical terms to section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957 in the U.K. In D.P.P. v. Camplin [1978] AC 705, Lord Diplock said at p.718D-F:

"A proper direction to a jury on the question left to their exclusive determination by section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957 would be on the following lines. The judge should state what the question is using the very terms of the section. He should then explain to them that the reasonable man referred to in the question is a person having the power of self-control to be expected of an ordinary person of the sex and age of the accused, but in other respects sharing such of the accused's characteristics as they think would affect the gravity of the provocation to him; and that the question is not merely whether such a person would in like circumstances be provoked to lose his self-control but would also react to the provocation as the accused did." (Our emphasis.)

27. The direction which the judge gave to the jury on the issue of provocation was as follows:

"What then is provocation? I will tell you. In law, provocation is some act or series of acts done, and/or words spoken, which: (i) causes in the accused person a sudden and temporary loss of self-control; and which (ii) would cause a reasonable person to lose his self-control and to behave as the accused person behaved.

The question of provocation, as I have already indicated to you, only arises after you are sure that all the elements of murder are otherwise present. Everything which I have already said on provocation was said on that basis. Equally, everything which I am going on to say on provocation will be said on that basis.

So, if you are sure that the alleged provoking conduct never took place, then that is the end of the question of provocation. And your verdict on the murder count would be: 'Guilty'. But if you think that the alleged provoking conduct may have taken place, then you must go on to consider whether it caused the accused to lose his self-control. If you are sure that it did not, then the question of provocation ends there. And your verdict on the murder count would be: 'Guilty'.

If, however, you think that the accused may have been provoked into losing his self-control, then you must consider the last question on provocation. It is whether the alleged provoking conduct would have caused a reasonable person - I repeat 'a reasonable person' - to behave - I repeat 'behave' - as the accused did.

A reasonable person, members of the jury, is an ordinary person - I repeat 'an ordinary person' - of the sex and age of the accused. If you think that a reasonable person may have been provoked to behave as the accused did, then your verdict would be: 'Not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter'. But if you, members of the jury, are sure that no reasonable person would behave as the accused behaved, then your verdict on the murder count would be 'Guilty'."

She repeated that direction in virtually identical terms at the end of her summing-up.

28. The criticism of the judge relates to the direction she gave as to what the phrase "a reasonable person" means. She did not refer to the fact that a reasonable person was a person "sharing such of the accused's characteristics as [the jury] think would affect the gravity of the provocation to him". Against that, Mr. Andrew Bruce S.C. for the Respondent submits that there was no need for the judge to refer to that, because the Appellant did not have any characteristics which could have affected the gravity of the provocation to an ordinary person sharing such characteristics.

29. Mr. Bruce is correct if the reference to "the accused's characteristics" is a reference to his personal characteristics. There are recent dicta from high authority which suggest that it is not. In R. v. Morhall [1996] 1 AC 90, the House of Lords had to decide whether the defendant's addiction to glue-sniffing was a characteristic of the kind which could affect the gravity of the provocation. It was held that it was, even though it was a disreputable characteristic which "the reasonable man" would by definition not have. However, in the course of his speech (with which the other members of the House of Lords agreed), Lord Goff of Chieveley said at p.98F-G:

"... in an appropriate case, it may be necessary to refer to other circumstances affecting the gravity of the provocation to the defendant which do not strictly fall within the description 'characteristics', as for example the defendant's history or the circumstances in which he is placed at the relevant time (see R. v. Camplin, at p.717C-D, per Lord Diplock, where he referred to 'the particular characteristics or circumstances' of the defendant, and at p.727D, per Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who referred to 'the entire factual situation', including the characteristics of the defendant.)"

30. Accordingly, the question is: was there anything in the Appellant's personal history or in the circumstances in which he was placed at the time of the allegedly provoking conduct which the jury could have thought could have affected the gravity of the provocation on an ordinary man of the Appellant's age? Mr. Mullick suggested that there was. So far as the Appellant's personal history was concerned, Mr. Mullick relied on the fact that he had come to Hong Kong to support his family, and that he had worked hard to remit a substantial proportion of his savings back to China. So far as the circumstances in which the Appellant was placed at the time were concerned, Mr. Mullick relied on the fact that he had completed his contract of service with the restaurant, that he was about to leave Hong Kong, but that his plans to return to China three days later would have been thwarted if Madam Wong had carried out her threat of falsely accusing him of rape.

31. We do not think that there was anything in the Appellant's personal history which was capable of affecting the gravity of the provocation. However, if it was the case that the Appellant realised that Madam Wong's threat could prevent his imminent return to China, that might have been capable of affecting the gravity of the provocation on an ordinary man of the Appellant's age in such circumstances. But the crucial point is that there was no evidential foundation that that was what the Appellant realised. He never asserted that Madam Wong threatened to accuse him of rape. That was what it was claimed he had told the police, and that was the basis upon which provocation was left to the jury. But although it was claimed that he had told the police that Madam Wong had threatened to accuse him of rape, it was not claimed that he had told the police that that had made him realise that he might not be able to return to China when he had planned to. In other words, although his claim to the police that Madam Wong had threatened him amounted to evidence on which the jury could find that he had been provoked into attacking Madam Wong, there was no evidence on which the jury could find that the Appellant realised that his imminent return to China might thereby be delayed.

32. Accordingly, the only circumstance which might have been capable of affecting the gravity of the allegedly provoking conduct on an ordinary man of the Appellant's age was not one which was present, because there was no evidence in support of it on which the jury could rely. It follows that there was no need for the judge to give the jury a direction which included the words which we have emphasised in Lord Diplock's speech, because there was nothing in the Appellant's personal history, or in the circumstances in which he was placed at the time, which the jury could have thought could have affected the gravity of the provocation on an ordinary man of the Appellant's age.

CONCLUSION AND THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL AGAINST SENTENCE

33. For these reasons, the Appellant's appeal against his conviction for murder must be dismissed. However, in addition to the count of murder, the indictment which the Appellant faced charged him with the theft of the jewellery and the money belonging to Madam Wong which he had decided to keep. He pleaded guilty to that charge. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, to be served concurrently with the sentence of life imprisonment imposed for Madam Wong's murder. The Appellant applies for leave to appeal against that sentence. That application is academic in view of the dismissal of his appeal against conviction on the murder charge, but we should deal with it nevertheless. It is sufficient for us to state that ransacking a dead woman's body for her possessions is a serious matter. We think that the sentence imposed by the judge was within the appropriate range. It was neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle.

Accordingly, the Applicant's application for leave to appeal against his sentence on the charge of theft must be refused.