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FORMER civil servant Harry Hui Kin-hong was left struggling after a prosecutor demanded to know how he managed to be gambling in Hong Kong when passport stamps placed him in Thailand.

   The retired buildings surveyor, who has been accused of having $1.5 million worth of funds and assets which he cannot explain, claims he won more than $1 million of it at the racetrack.

  The remainder was a loan from his brother-in-law, Hui told the District Court.

  The former surveyor produced a black book in which he claimed to have recorded his racing wins and losses.

  But while Hui's personal records placed him at the racetrack on May 7, 1988, his passport showed he was in Bangkok.

  Asked to explain the apparent contradiction, Hui speculated he might have asked someone else to place the bets on his behalf.

  'Mr Hui - you're struggling,' prosecutor John McLanachan said. 'You've written down in your own handwriting 'lost $3,500'.'   When the former surveyor said he could have asked his Filipino maid to go to the track, the prosecutor shook his head and muttered: 'Filipino maid - right'.

  Hui, 51, has pleaded not guilty to maintaining a standard of living above that commensurate with his earnings.

 Between January 1, 1988, and December 31, 1990, almost $1.5 million in unexplained funds found its way into his bank accounts.

  Hui told the court his brother-in-law had lent him $400,000 to pay for his family's emigration to Canada.

  But when the prosecutor asked him what he did with the money, Hui said he hid the first $200,000 instalment in a drawer in his bedroom where it remained untouched from November 1989 to May 1990.

  When Mr McLanachan pointed out that leaving this deprived both Hui and his brother-in-law of interest on the money, Hui said the thought had never occurred to him.

  'For six months, you did precisely nothing with that money,' the prosecutor said.

  'Why did you borrow money when you didn't need it, had no immediate use for it and kept it at home?'   Hui said he had planned to use the money for 'household utensils', furniture and shipping costs to Canada.

  In May 1990, Hui claimed to have taken $74,000 from the drawer and gambled it away at the racetrack.

  'I wanted to win with that money to purchase a BMW in Canada,' Hui said.

  The prosecutor pointed out that Hui had borrowed money at a time when he was able to afford to buy property in Canada.

  'During the charge period, you had one house, one flat, and a down payment on a flat,' Mr McLanachan said.

  'You're surely not telling this court that you borrowed $400,000 from your brother-in-law for buying or shipping furniture?'   The former civil servant insisted that he had.

  Hui joined the Building and Lands Department in 1965, and retired in February last year, when he had risen to the rank of Senior Estate Surveyor.

  The trial continues before Judge Kilgour.



Ex-official in muddle over dates and places