tim's experiment

Raders may feel there are more worthy recipients of thir sympathy than Tony Chan, fung shui master, seducer of elderly millionairesses and unsuccessful chaimant for the Chinachem moneypile. I do wonder, though, how Mr Chan can hope to get a fair trial on the charges of forgery which were apparently levied against him on Wednesday.
Generally if an event can give rise to a civil or a criminal case, the criminal case is done first (OJ Simpson was a conspicuous example). There are two reasons for this. One is that the interest of society in the suppression of crime should take precedence over the interest of individuals in pursuing legal claims against other individuals. The other is that the civil proceedings will in all likelihood be highly prejudicial of the criminal ones. A great deal of relevant evidence will be heard and reported to people who have no reason to believe at that time that they will later be involved in a criminal trial involving the same facts. Also the result will be a distraction. If the future criminal defendant wins, potential jurors may believe he has already established his innocence. If he loses they may jump to the contrary conclusion. This is particularly unfortunate because the standard of proof in civil matters is lower. Mr Justice Johnson Lam only had to decide on the balance of probabilities which will was the valid one. A criminal conviction requires proof beyond reasonable doubt.  The prosecution will now be helped by a wave of pre-trial publicity. Of course it sometimes happens, as in the notorious Oscar Wilde trials, that matters emerge in a civil trial which clearly call for a criminal prosecution afterwards. But that is hardly the case here. Given the appearance of two competing wills the possibility that one was bogus was there from the start and could have been investigated properly before the civil trial took place.

Under the circumstances it is perhaps a pity that the learned Lam rather let his mouth run away with him. Once he had found that the second will was a forgery there was no need for him to express an opinion on other matters not germane to this point, like who was sleeping with whom. I suppose it was necessary for him to report that he did not find Mr Chan a credible witness, but other aspersions on Mr Chan’s character were gratuitous. Rich nutty ladies are entitled to leave their fortunes to “scheming syc0phants” if they want to. Poor Nina does not seem to have had many alternatives. The whole case has been a monument to people’s willingness to appear unlovely in public if a few million dollars are at stake. I can’t think of anyone involved in the case who I would happily contemplate as a son-in-law.

Still, Mr Chan can still think himself lucky compared with the lady who was charged with driving while drunk and slapping a policeman last week. Reports of this case were spectacularly prejudicial, including names and pictures of defendant and victim, interviews with witnesses, accounts of television footage, and even the defendants’ previous convictions. Has the Department of Justice stopped bothering about prejudicial pre-trial coverage now, or are we only allowed to do it if it favours the prosecution?