Juror discharged from will forgery trial

A member of the jury hearing the trial of Peter Chan Chun-chuen, a self-styled fung shui master of Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum, has been discharged for health reasons.

The number of jurors hearing the case is now eight, following Mr Justice Andrew Macrae's decision to allow one to be discharged yesterday, the seventh day of a trial that began on May 24.

The reduced size of the jury will not affect the number of jurors' findings required to reach a verdict.

With an eight-member jury, the prosecution still needs at least six jurors to find Chan guilty in order to secure a conviction.

Chan, 53, is accused of forging a will in the name of Chinachem tycoon Wang, a charge he denies.

Yesterday, the prosecution called its fourth witness, Ng Shung-mo, to give his first testimony in the trial.

Ng, director and manager of the Chinachem Group, said that in 2003, Wang gave him a folder containing several photocopies of a will she drafted in 2002.

"Mrs Wang asked me to keep them," he said.

He told the court that sometime between the end of 2003 and early 2004, Wang also handed him the original copy of her 2002 will.

"Mrs Wang told me, 'If anything happens to me, you should take the will out and announce it'," he said.

Ng and solicitor Winfield Wong Wing-cheung both testified that Wang signed a partial will in October 2006.

But Ng said he had not read the document when he witnessed Wang signing it.

Wong said Ng had come to see him a few days after both men attested Wang's signing of the will in 2006. Wong said Ng asked him about the contents of the will.

He also said he did not agree with parts of a witness statement that a barrister representing the Chinachem Charitable Foundation had prepared for him to sign after Wang's death in 2007.

"[The lawyer for the foundation] said the [will] was apparently a complete will. But [in my view] it dealt only with the residue of her assets," Wong told the court.

Defence counsel Andrew Kam also argued that a written statement given by Wong was mostly guided by the barrister for the foundation.

The trial continues today.