LIU FOON-KUN AND ANOTHER v. THE QUEEN

CACC000901/1976

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
on appeal from the High Court
	1976 No. 901
	(Criminal)

 

BETWEEN:
	LIU Foon-kun	Appellants
	KWOK Kam-hon
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

Coram: Briggs, C.J., Huggins & Pickering, JJ.A.

Date of Judgment: 15 February, 1977.

 

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JUDGMENT

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1. The two appellants were found guilty of the manslaughter of one LEE Kwok-hung. In addition, the second appellant was found guilty of the manslaughter of two other persons CHU Wing-choi and CHAN Shing. The first appellant was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and the second appellant was sentenced to three terms of seven years' imprisonment, the sentences to be concurrent. The appellants appeal against their conviction and sentences.

2. The three deceased persons all died from the effects of drinking Chinese wine strongly impregnated with methyl alcohol. It was the case for the prosecution that that methyl alcohol was supplied by the appellants and that the appellants well knowing of the dangerous nature of methyl alcohol were negligent in that they sold it to others well knowing that it was to be mixed with other liquid and would be sold to members of the public.

3. The second appellant bought the methyl alcohol in bulk from the wholesaler and then sold it to the first appellant.

4. In one case the first appellant then mixed some of the methyl alcohol with Chinese wine and sold it to a wine store. On another occasion he sold some methyl alcohol to a wine store well knowing that it was to be mixed with other wine. Upon each occasion the proprietor of the wine store was unaware that the substance was methyl alcohol. The wine adulterated with methyl alcohol was put on sale to the public.

5. It was part of the case for the prosecution that the three victims purchased some of the adulterated wine, drank some of it and died in consequence.

6. In order to succeed it was necessary for the Crown to prove an unbroken chain of evidence tracing the existence in the wine of methyl alcohol from the victims who drank it back through the shop from which it was purchased to the wholesale shop where it had been mixed and finally back to the two appellants or to one of them.

7. The question for the jury was: Did the bottles of wine which caused the death of the deceased contain methyl alcohol which was purchased from the appellants?

8. The first count charged the two appellants jointly with the manslaughter of Lee Kwok Hung. It was proved that the deceased died from drinking adulterated wine. It was also proved that the wine shop Hip Hing Tai from which the fatal bottle was purchased had obtained that bottle from a wholesale wine store, Wing Sing. The proprietor of Wing Sing had himself made up the mixture of Chinese wine and methyl alcohol. And it was proved that he had purchased methyl alcohol from the appellants. However, it was not proved that the fatal bottle must have come from those bottles which were delivered by Wing Sing to the Hip Hing Tai Wine Shop. They may have had a supplier other than Wing Sing and the fatal bottle may have come from that other supplier.

9. It was proved that there had been two deliveries to Hip Hing Tai from Wing Sing at the relevant period of time. But it was possible that such deliveries had taken place before the time at which the proprietor of Wing Sing commenced to make use of the methyl alcohol, which he purchased from the appellants. In effect, we found that the evidence was not conclusive that the wine delivered on the two occasions referred to did contain wine adulterated with methyl alcohol supplied by the appellants.

10. We therefore allowed the appeal against conviction on the first count and set aside the sentences.

11. The other two counts concerned the second appellant only. In either case the chain of evidence tracing the methyl alcohol in the fatal bottle back to the second appellant was proved beyond reasonable doubt and we dismissed his appeal in respect of those two counts.

12. The second appellant was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment on each of these two counts. In view of the fact that we allowed his appeal on the first count, we will allow his appeal against sentence on the third and fourth counts to the extent that the sentence in each case will be reduced from seven to five years. The sentences to be concurrent.

 

 

	(Geoffrey Briggs)
	President.

 

Representation:

A. Rogers (D.L.A.) for 1st appellant.

N. Singh (Helen A. Lo & Co.) for 2nd appellant.

Conway for crown.