Police inspector John MacLennan was 'hounded' into suicide over homosexuality
Police inspector's death followed pressure from fellow officers amid force's double standards
A solicitor involved in the controversial inquiry into the death of Inspector John MacLennan in 1980 has no doubts that he committed suicide, and that he was "hounded into killing himself" by Hong Kong's police hierarchy.
Murray Burton was responding to questions raised in last week's Sunday Morning Post about how MacLennan could fire off five rounds into his own body, and the conspiracy theories that have arisen over the motive behind the police force's homosexuality charges against him.
The 29-year-old Scot was found dead of the wounds on the morning he was to be arrested by the Special Investigations Unit - a specialist police unit charged with investigating homosexuals - on charges of indecency. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Hong Kong only in 1991. His death sparked the most expensive public inquiry in Hong Kong's history, costing HK$16 million.
Burton, 65, was the solicitor to the independent commission for the MacLennan Inquiry in 1981. He was involved in the investigation for its entire duration until the commission produced its report 14 months later.
"I can assure you there was no cover-up or whitewash. To this day I'm asked how is it possible for an individual to shoot themselves five times," Burton said. "But only one of the five shots was considered by ballistics and forensics to be fatal."
Burton said MacLennan was seated on his bed holding his revolver reversed. Some shots were fired into his stomach and abdomen area, as well as his chest. He did not shoot himself in either the head or the heart.