Electronic tracking system set to help Hong Kong police counter detainees harm themselves in custody
- Measures introduced after second suicide in custody of local force within year
- Balance to be struck between better safety and maintaining privacy
Police have unveiled measures to counter self-harm while in detention as an inquest into the death of a rape suspect – the second suicide in Hong Kong custody within a year – drew to a close on Monday.
The measures would include an electronic tracking system to ensure officers properly checked detainees, an inadequacy exposed by the inquest into the death of Lam Wing-chun who hanged himself with a computer cable at Sau Mau Ping police station on May 11, 2017.
Officers on duty had failed on 17 occasions to check on Lam in the hours before his death, even though visits were recorded in a log book. Two later attributed their absence to illness, while a third said he had called out to Lam and received a satisfactory response.
Lam, a delivery man, was arrested on May 10, accused of raping and robbing a woman near Kowloon Bay MTR station two days earlier. He was found dead the next morning.
Lam was one of 145 people who either attempted self-harm or suicide in the past five years while detained at a police station. Four died.