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Jane Moir

The collapse of a sex murder case amid accusations police beat the suspects underlined the need for an independent monitoring body, human rights activists said.

  'There must be some kind of continual checking system in the police force,' Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai argued, 'and it must be entrusted to an independent body'. 'The system just lets these things go without anything being done. That's not acceptable.'       Mr Justice Michael Wong Kin-chow last week freed four suspects accused of murdering Ho Wing-sze, 14, who died when a car was driven back and forth over her head. She had been sexually assaulted.

  The judge accused officers from New Territories South Regional Crime Unit One of fabrication, assault, threats and breaching the rules of statement-taking. He said they would 'stop at nothing' to extract confessions.

  Ho's body was found in a parking area for container trucks at the Hong Kong United Dockyard near Tsing Yi Island on November 14, 1994. She was naked but for a pair of tennis socks.

  The judge threw the suspects' confessions out of the High Court, saying he did not trust them as evidence.

  The pressure group and the Hong Kong Human Rights Commission have fought relentlessly for an independent monitoring body.

  Complaints against police are now investigated by police officers.

  Human Rights Commission chairman Ho Hei-wah said police relied solely on confessions. 'They don't seem to understand that even if they get the statements this evidence may not be accepted by the court,' he said.

  'They are expert in getting confessions - even if they have to beat and torture. They know how to make you frightened.'   Last year, the Sunday Morning Post revealed that almost half the suspects who had given confessions over a two-month period claimed to have been threatened or assaulted by police.

  In 18 per cent of cases, magistrates said they were convinced the confession had been obtained involuntarily.

  It is not known whether the officers involved in the sex murder case will face disciplinary action.

   The case files are being passed to Senior Superintendent Peter Bacon at the New Territories unit.

  'There are various allegations being made . . . we have nothing to hide,' he said. 'If the judge has even a one per cent element of doubt, he has to rule in favour of the defendants.' 



Monitor call after murder case collapses