Jailed killer to appeal after a landmark ruling in Britain on wrongful murder convictions
‘Wrong interpretation’ of joint enterprise law could have consequences for man given life term with two others in 2014 for murder of teenage boy in Tseung Kwan O
A jailed killer of a 15-year-old boy who suffered a bloody beating before being thrown into the sea in Tseung Kwan O is set to appeal after a landmark ruling in Britain on wrongful murder convictions.
Barrister Andrew Raffell will argue that Lai Chun-man – who was handed a mandatory life sentence, alongside Shek Ka-kwan and Ricky Mui Chun-yu – was wrongly convicted under the legal principle of “joint enterprise”.
This follows a ruling last week by the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom that the law “took a wrong turn” when it established the legal principle of “joint enterprise” on the basis of a Hong Kong murder case more than 30 years ago.
The law had allowed people to be convicted of murder in gang-related cases even if they did not inflict the fatal blow as they could have foreseen violent acts by their associates. But the UK judges ruled it was wrong to treat “foresight” as a sufficient test.
Lai, 30, was jailed in 2014 for the murder of Tsang Ming-sze in a dispute over a girl. The trio kicked and punched the teenager, then Mui hit Ming-sze’s head with a stone, before Shek helped him throw the boy into the sea, the High Court heard.
Raffell said: “Murder is intention, the intention to kill or cause serious injury. For a secondary party in joint enterprise killings, that was watered down to a foresight of risk.”