An umbrella seller wrongly sent to a mental hospital for two weeks by a magistrate has claimed he was mistakenly put in an isolated psychiatric ward once before.
Chan Shu-hung, 59, said his first experience of solitary confinement came 12 years ago, when police sent him to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre after he reported that a locksmith taught him how to make a bomb during a visit by a high-profile political figure from the mainland.
'It was dreadful. I would say it was a near-death experience,' said Chan, whom the High Court last week ruled was mistakenly locked up in May by Magistrate Abu Bakar bin Wahab when defending himself against a charge of criminal damage.
'I was just trying to distance myself from the locksmith. I just didn't want to get involved in his crime. But the police arrested me and sent me to a mental hospital,' Chan said. 'It was a wrong decision. I was mistakenly asked to take psychiatric medicine.'
He maintained doctors erred in their judgment that he suffered from a mental disorder. The story of his original wrongful detention was not heard by the Court of First Instance when he won his appeal against his conviction for criminal damage and wrongful detention by Wahab.
Meanwhile Chan is asking the Department of Justice to grant him compensation over what he called 'serious default' in the later case. .
In a judgment handed down this week, Mrs Justice Judianna Barnes Wai-ling wrote that the reason the magistrate had ruled on Chan's mental health stemmed from a failure to understand his case. Wahab, she said, had refused to accept his written submission and denied him the chance to explain himself.