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SCMP Reporter

A sacked constable who was reinstated this week after winning an appeal at the city's top court wants HK$1 million in compensation, the police union said yesterday. 
Lam Siu-po,  38, was forced to retire after he was convicted of misconduct in 2002. 
On Thursday, the Court of Final Appeal  quashed his conviction and struck down police regulations that barred officers from hiring lawyers  for disciplinary hearings. 
'He said he was so happy about the judgment that it was like waking up from a nightmare,' Police Inspectors' Association  chairman Tony Liu Kit-ming  said.
Constable Lam, a 12-year police veteran before his sacking, worked as a security guard in recent years  with a HK$7,000 a month salary. 
He had been earning about HK$22,000 a month as a constable and lived in  subsidised housing. Constable Lam planned to ask the force to make up his salary and other benefits for the last seven years, Mr Liu said. 
Despite his long legal battle, Constable Lam had not held a grudge against his bosses and welcomed the offer to work as a police officer again, the union leader said. 
'What Lam was fighting was the system,' Mr Liu said. 'He's not personally against any senior police officers or the force. I don't think anyone would give him a hard time.'
In its 70-page ruling, the city's top court ruled that Constable Lam had not received a fair hearing because his requests for a lawyer were denied. 
He was convicted of breaking  police rules by racking up more than HK$600,000 in stock market losses.
But Constable Lam had argued there was no evidence that the debt had adversely affected his work, key to a misconduct  finding.  
A lawyer, he said, might have helped him win an acquittal. Instead, Constable Lam had represented himself after dismissing his police representative.
'Fairness required that  he be permitted to be legally represented,' the court said in its unanimous ruling. 
The police force, which reinstated Constable Lam hours after the ruling, said it would consider giving him a fresh hearing. He would not start regular  work immediately, Mr Liu said. 
 'I think they'll give him a few months of training so he has time to catch up with current police practices,' Mr Liu said. 'He had a good record. If not for this case, he would have been promoted.'
About 100  officers have been dismissed for chalking up huge debts. All current proceedings against officers facing bankruptcy would be put on hold, the force said. 
Since the ruling, about 20 sacked officers had called the  union,  Mr Liu said. But the court's ruling was no guarantee they would be reinstated. 'It depends on whether they raised the issue of legal representation and also the time lag,' Mr Liu said. 'All these kinds of cases have to be dealt with individually.'



Reinstated police officer seeks HK$1 million in compensation