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The Chief Judge of the High Court yesterday blocked moves by the former head of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) enforcement division to have an English barrister defend him at his trial in August.

Gerard Joseph McMahon, 58, is facing one count of perverting the course of justice over a June 1993 affidavit sworn in relation to High Court proceedings brought by the troubled Allied Group.

The Allied Group has been at the centre of one of  Hong Kong's most costly and lengthy fraud trials involving Allied Group chairman Lee Ming-tee and Ronald Tse.

Both men have denied a count of conspiracy to defraud and publishing a false statement of accounting between 1990 and 1992.

Next Tuesday, the Court of Final Appeal is expected to hear submissions from the Department of Public Prosecutions as to whether the matter should be sent back before the Court of First Instance for a third time after it was discharged by Mr Justice Conrad Seagroatt earlier this year.

Alan Leong SC, counsel representing Mr McMahon in the Court of First Instance yesterday, said his client had a 25-year professional history in Hong Kong during which he had closely worked with the legal sector in his capacity at the SFC and the Attorney-General's office.

'This is not any Tom, Dick or Harry to come before this court to say that he would not want the local silk to represent him,' he said.

Mr Leong added that while the defence case for proving Mr McMahon lacked intent was not complex, the fact was that the field of barristers open to him was narrow.

Mr Leong said his client had his professional and private reputation at stake in the forthcoming trial which is scheduled for August 4.

But Joseph Tse, counsel representing the Hong Kong Bar Association, said to bring in an overseas barrister to do a job that several Hong Kong barristers were capable of doing would give 'undue weight' to Mr McMahon's  wishes.

Mr Justice Arthur Leong Shiu-hung agreed, saying the exercise was essentially a balancing act between the public interest and Mr McMahon's interest.



Request for English barrister rejected