Bus crash court hearing moves to accident site
The District Court's hearing into the bus crash that killed 21 people in Tuen Mun in July last year was moved to the crash site yesterday.
Senior Government Prosecutor Lynda Shine said the field visit was set up to enable Deputy District Judge Ian Thomas to better picture the facts surrounding the tragic accident - involving a double-decker bus and a truck with a trailer - and the curving roadway at the scene.
Twenty-one people were killed when the bus crashed off the elevated road and fell into a village after a collision with the container truck on July 10 last year.
The truck driver, 53-year-old Li Chau-wing, admitted operating an unregistered and faulty trailer, but pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving causing death, during the opening session of the trial on Monday.
Escorted by a police convoy, the fleet of vehicles carrying the judge, the defendant, Ms Shine, government counsel Teresa Kam Yuk, defence lawyers Andrew MacRae, SC, and Raymond Fong, set off for the crash site from the District Court in Wan Chai yesterday morning.
They were first led to the Yau Kom Tau water catchment area in Tuen Mun, where Judge Thomas looked down from a lookout to the crash site about 500 metres away.
The court moved to the accident scene - distance marker 15.2 of the Tuen Mun Highway, near the slip road leading to Tai Lam Tunnel.
