Hong Kong officers lose appeal over framing homeless man and covering up evidence

Court says four police officers intended to obstruct justice when they tried to block CCTV cameras as colleagues planted drugs on street sleeper Constable Leung Fei-pang. He was among six officers convicted of five counts of perverting the course of justice over the incident in Tung Chau Street Park in Sham Shui Po. Photo: Jelly Tse Four disgraced Hong Kong police officers have lost their appeal against convictions and jail terms for framing a homeless man for drug possession and destroying evidence of the cover-up six years ago. In a written judgment on Thursday, the Court of Appeal said the officers must have intended to pervert the course of justice when they tried to obstruct surveillance cameras while colleagues fabricated evidence against a street sleeper during a crackdown on drug use on February 4, 2020. The three presiding judges rejected the officers’ claims that they did not intend to prejudice subsequent legal proceedings and that tampering with surveillance footage had no material impact on the prosecution. “Common sense tells us that merging evidence collected at two locations, covering it with blankets and placing it in a bag while acting as if nothing had happened is inherently absurd,” Mr Justice Derek Pang Wai-cheong said on behalf of the panel. “This course of conduct alone provides a sufficient basis to infer that officers were fabricating evidence, and that attempts to obstruct cameras were aimed at avoiding any record of the misconduct.” The court also declined to reduce the four officers’ sentences, citing the seriousness of the offences and their adverse impact on the administration of justice. Constables Leung Fei-pang, Pong Chun-sze, Chan Sau-yip and Wan Pak-sze were among six officers convicted of five counts of perverting the course of justice over the incident on Tung Chau Street Park in Sham Shui Po. The court has also decided against reducing the four officers’ sentences, citing the seriousness of the offences and their adverse impact on the administration of justice. Photo: Edmond So Leung, Pong and Chan obstructed the view of two CCTV cameras while colleagues framed Le Van Muoi by placing drugs seized from other homeless people into a black cylinder that police falsely claimed belonged to him. Wan also made false entries in her notebook and lied in her witness statement, claiming the suspected drugs had been seized from Le’s tent. In October 2024, the District Court sentenced Chan and Wan to three years and one month in prison, while Leung and Pong received two years and one month. Police sergeant Lam Wah-ka and constable Mok Chi-shing, who were jailed for three years and five months and three years and one month respectively, did not appeal. Constables Kwok Chin-sing and Hon Ting-kwong were acquitted of charges related to the alleged assault of street sleeper Nguyen Van Son in the same trial, after the court found him to be an unreliable witness. Unhandled type: inline-plus-widget {"type":"inline-plus-widget"} Le, who had multiple prior drug convictions, died in October 2020 after he was found to have strangled himself while on remand in a psychiatric facility.