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SCMP Reporter

Your face is pressed to the ground by a man's boot while two others kick your stomach. Your kidneys are being pounded by their fists. You cannot breathe.

 A crowd of 100 or so people gather around to watch, some shouting at the attackers to stop.

 They can see the men with the boots and the fists belong to police officers, so they do not help.

 Would you?  The hawkers, shoppers, passers-by and residents who watched Lee Shing-tat being stopped by three men at a busy Tai Po market did nothing to halt the assault they say that followed.

 But this is the version of events they gave journalists and human-rights activists. Now 2.5 years later, Lee's father, Lee Shi-hei, is still looking for answers. He wants to know exactly how his son died.

 An internal investigation into alleged police brutality was completed more than a year ago, yet Lee Shi-hei has seen none of the reports and has received no explanation apart from the odd letter saying the probe was 'ongoing'.

 His 37-year-old son left his Tai Po flat at 3.40pm on March 6, 1995, intending to be back in a matter of minutes with a few groceries.

 But he was stopped by three plain-clothed Police Tactical Unit officers carrying out identity checks.

 Lee was slow to respond. Medication he took for epilepsy made him sluggish.

 'He was not very bright because he had been taking the drug for 31 years,' his father said. 'When police asked him for his ID card, he had a very slow response.'  Witness accounts taken by reporters and human-rights activists described the scuffle that followed.

 None of these witnesses turned up at Lee's inquest.

 Pressure group Human Rights Monitor (HRM) has asked that the names of the witnesses remain confidential.

 One statement read: 'They pinned him down, kicked him everywhere. He had difficulty breathing.'  Another read: 'First the police asked for his ID card, and asked other questions. Then the man said 'why should I, who are you?'  'Then the officers dragged him down, pinned him in front of a shoe shop. They brought him to the staircase next to it and the police nailed him down.

 '[One police] kicked his stomach, another stamped his head and hit him with his fist. The man shouted 'release me, let me go, I can't breathe. It's too painful.'  'Then the police used handcuffs. They handcuffed him, and dragged him to the car.'  Another witness recalled: 'The man was lying on the ground, there were three plain-clothed police next to him.

 'His right chin was stuck to the ground, his right hand was behind his back, and the policeman used his knee on the man's back. He immobilised him.

 'Later on, police in uniform arrived and the police removed him to somewhere near the staircase.

 'There were people around questioning the police. Why did they have to use so many people to restrain that man?'  When the witness left, more than 100 people were still standing around.

 'In order to stop the beating, my son requested to go to the police station,' Mr Lee said. 'He had no alternative. That was his last resort.'  Bruised and cut on his wrists, arms and legs, and experiencing sharp chest pains, Lee was then charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.

 Lee phoned his mother from the police station. After requesting a medical examination, he was accompanied by police to the Tai Po Jockey Club clinic. His blood pressure was slightly higher than normal and a report listed superficial injuries to his body.

 He arrived home at 12.30 the next morning and phoned the Complaints Against Police Office (CAPO).

 Lee's parents also arranged to meet their solicitor that day, but Lee was not to make the appointment.

 Phone calls to his flat throughout the morning were in vain.

 'My wife and I repeatedly rang up our son, just to remind him there would be an appointment with the solicitor,' his father recalls. 'The phone just kept ringing.'  Lee's mother and a friend visited his flat at the crack of dawn. When they arrived, all was silent. They opened the door with the help of a locksmith.

 There, sitting on a rattan chair in the lounge, was Lee Shing-tat. He was motionless.

 'He was quite peaceful, facing the TV set,' Mr Lee said. 'I thought he may have been watching TV but it wasn't switched on.'  Some time in the early hours of the morning his son had died.

 There were no signs of an epileptic attack. 'Whenever there was an attack, my son would urinate and there would be convulsions,' Mr Lee said.

 A coroner's inquest in September 1995 ruled death by misadventure.

 The autopsy report submitted by police forensic pathologist to the Coroner's Court listed the cause of death as apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which relates to a heart muscle condition that does not cause sudden death.

 Experts consulted by HRM and Lee's family have challenged and rejected this.

 'The cause of death is ridiculous,' said Dr Stephen Ng, a HRM member who scrutinised the autopsy report. 'They said it was apical fibrosis. At the tip of the heart, the muscle there had some fibrosis, or scarring.

 'This is quite common, but it is not a cause of sudden death because the essential muscle of the heart is not at the apex, it's in the ventricle.

 'Even if there's extensive fibrosis, it's not a lethal condition.'  Dr Ng claims there were a few omissions in the autopsy report.

 'There was no mention of the brain. We don't know . . . if there was a haemorrhage.'  Neither was an X-ray taken of the body despite the knowledge that this was a suspected assault, Dr Ng says, adding another autopsy is still possible, 'but the longer you wait, the less you find'.

 HRM also consulted Professor John Sanderson, head of the division of cardiology at the Chinese University's department of medicine.

 'It is highly unlikely that the presence of apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy per se would account for this man's death,' he pointed out.

 Lee's father, together with HRM, has urged another post-mortem examination by independent forensic pathologists. 'He had been a long-time patient at Queen Elizabeth Hospital since he was six years old,' Mr Lee said about his son. 'He had no heart problems.'  Dr Mong Hoi-keung - who heads the forensic pathology department under the Department of Health - stresses that pathologists have no active role in the investigation of criminal cases, adding his team of 16 forensic pathologists work on a consultative basis.

 'For CAPO cases we provide expert advice in the form of giving opinions based on the findings of clinicians,' he said.

 The use of X-rays is at the pathologists' discretion.

 Aware of the questions raised by rights activists and the family of Lee Shing-tat, Dr Mong said: 'Two things need to be elaborated.

 'We work for the Department of Health and the coroner.

 'There may be a suggestion we are police personnel. We are performing post-mortem examinations, not necessarily in police cases, but at the order of the coroner.'  The autopsy findings were passed to the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), along with CAPO's report, last March. The IPCC has yet to endorse either.

 The fact the police are policing themselves is unacceptable to Mr Lee, and to various rights groups that have urged an independent system for years.

 'Police officers investigating police officers is collusion,' Mr Lee said.

 All witnesses at the inquest were selected by police. They were unlicensed hawkers, according to HRM. It was doubtful they would speak out against the police.

 'Everything was to our disadvantage, because the witnesses dared not speak out, especially if they were asked to give their name or their ID,' Mr Lee said.

 CAPO is adamant avenues open for complaint are obvious from the moment you enter a police station. Complaints are handled with speed and diligence, acting senior superintendent of CAPO Albert Ng Kam-wing insists.

 Things have taken longer in Lee Shing-tat's case because first there was an inquest, he says. A full investigation into the allegations of police brutality followed.

 Many statements were taken, and inquiry results were sent to the IPCC for endorsement.

 Normally, if a case does not involve court proceedings, an investigation can start immediately.

 Minor cases can be completed within two months, Mr Ng says, while those requiring more investigation can take an extra month.

 All CAPO interviews are video-taped and all telephone calls recorded.

 Although he says there are no 'bad apples' in the police force, Mr Ng offers this advice to those who believe they are victims of police abuse.

 'Find a witness. Find an independent witness to support you,' he said. 'The most important thing is, if you can find a witness, you can prove the truth.'  Lee Shi-hei is not impressed. Neither, it would seem, are some of Hong Kong's magistrates.

 A recent survey of magistrates found that in cases involving confession evidence, 45.6 per cent of defendants said their confessions were not made voluntarily. Magistrates said in 18 per cent of cases, they were not satisfied confessions were obtained voluntarily.

 It is not possible to list the exact nature of the 1,290 assault complaints lodged with CAPO last year.

 Although this figure is down from the 1,577 reported in 1995, accusations of evidence being fabricated by police increased more than 20 per cent to 225 last year from 187 in 1995.

 A total of 3,311 complaints against police were made last year.

 Only 25 complaints were substantiated of the 251 investigated in 1996. Of these, 144 were unsubstantiated.

 The rest were either deemed not pursuable or were withdrawn.

 In the case of Lee Shing-tat, his father says he will not rest until justice is done.

 He has enlisted the help of human-rights groups and the press.

 'When I see police now, I look the other way,' Mr Lee said.

 'My family's main aim is that those who committed the wrong-doings, those who had taken the law into their own hands, should receive the appropriate punishment.'  Since the incident, Mr Lee says he frequently dreams of his son.

 'In the dreams I've seen my son many times.

 'He tells me he can never come back but hopes that as his father, I could do the necessary things so that all of our family members can see justice done,' Mr Lee says.

 'Although I'm not superstitious, I think that was his last request, hoping I can do my best and have justice done.' 



The grieving parents who still await the truth