判決理由書／裁決書撮要(由AI生成)
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The judgment states that at around 6pm on 31 August 2019, suspected riotous conduct by protesters occurred in succession at 1 Hennessy Road and Luard Road on Hong Kong Island, including roadblocks being erected, debris being set alight and petrol bombs being thrown at the police. The police formed two lines of defence and advanced eastwards along Hennessy Road from Queensway, deploying a water cannon to clear the scene, and arrested eight defendants in succession on a section of Hennessy Road and Luard Road outside Southorn Stadium. The prosecution initially arrested them for unlawful assembly, later amending the charge to a single count of rioting, and also accused the fourth defendant of possessing an offensive weapon in a public place; apart from the fifth defendant who was not required to plead, the other defendants all denied the charges, and after the prosecution presented its evidence no substantive defence evidence was offered.
To secure a conviction, the criminal standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ must be met; the prosecution must prove the offence beyond any doubt.
The prosecution failed to prove that any of the defendants took any concrete action at the riot scene before their arrest; police testimony diverged in many respects from the written statements and video footage, and identification evidence based solely on clothing, equipment or flight carries a substantial risk; the evidence that the fourth defendant possessed a weapon was also discredited because the sergeant’s account of retrieving an object from a backpack did not match the images; identification of the third defendant was unreliable as his attire was common and not distinctive; the prosecution’s pursuit evidence regarding the sixth and eighth defendants became questionable in its veracity after cross-examination; the fifth defendant, while present, only urged the police to exercise restraint and did not share a common purpose to disturb public peace.
The judge expressed a high degree of scepticism towards the prosecution’s evidence as a whole, holding that mere factors such as the place of arrest, clothing and equipment are insufficient to reasonably infer participation in a riot; police testimony was generally unreliable, and the overall evidence did not meet the standard required for a conviction beyond doubt.
The bench ruled that the charges of rioting and possession of an offensive weapon were not established, and the defendants were acquitted and released. (Translated from Chinese to English by AI)
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