Hong Kong Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Hearsay rule

Legal area

Court

7 Jan 2025

HKSAR v. LI CHEUNG CHOI

Citation

[2025] HKCFA 1
Court

Court of Final Appeal
Case number

FACC9/2024

An accused's out‑of‑court statements to a medical expert remain hearsay if used to prove the truth of their contents; they are admissible only as the factual basis for an expert's opinion and the weight of such opinion is for the jury to assess; the court will not create a new common‑law exception extending the mixed statement rule to admit such statements as proof of their truth and any reform is for the legislature.
18 Apr 2024

香港特別行政區訴梁俊熹及另一人

Citation

[2024] HKCFI 931
Court

Court of First Instance
Case number

HCMA166/2022

The court held (1) the defective statutory description of the offence was amendable and not a nullity; (2) the WhatsApp messages seized and forensically extracted were admissible for the non‑hearsay purpose of proving that messages bearing number 51164458 were sent and, on the totality of evidence (phone found in appellant’s room, SIM registration records, corroborating testimony and matching message threads on multiple phones), the only reasonable inference was that D7 sent the impugned messages; (3) the message content objectively amounted to incitement to commit criminal damage and the req…
13 Oct 2023

HKSAR v. YEUNG CHUN HIN

Citation

[2023] HKCA 1176
Court

Court of Appeal
Case number

CACC121/2019

Failure to direct the jury that a prior inconsistent out-of-court statement (MFI-3) could not be used as evidence of its truth but only for assessing the witness's credibility was a material irregularity in the circumstances of this case (notably the acquittal on Count 1 and disparate verdicts); the omission rendered the conviction unsafe, the proviso to s83(1) was not applied, and the appeal must be allowed with conviction and sentence set aside.
14 Nov 2022

HKSAR v. MILNE JOHN

Citation

[2022] HKCFA 22
Court

Court of Final Appeal
Case number

FACC2/2022

The Court allowed the prosecution’s appeal: the judge’s voire dire ruling excluding the WhatsApp photographs and phone data was wrong because the evidence was admissible as real evidence for non‑testimonial purposes and the judge misapplied s.22A and trespassed on the jury’s function; the stay was therefore based on an irrelevant consideration and miscarried and must be set aside; the subsequent grant and variation of bail are set aside because they flowed from the erroneous stay and the status quo ante should have been preserved under s.35(2) to avoid rendering any intended appeal nugatory.
29 Jul 2022

HKSAR v. FUNG HOI YEUNG

Citation

[2022] HKCA 1073
Court

Court of Appeal
Case number

CACC62/2019

The trial judge misapplied the law by treating the photograph on the victim's phone as necessarily engaging s22A and by intervening to prevent proper cross-examination; the photograph was admissible as real evidence or, at minimum, as a subject for cross-examination on relevance and authenticity, and the judge's interventions deprived the defence of a vital line of inquiry making the conviction unsafe, therefore the conviction must be quashed.
24 Nov 2021

HKSAR v. ASIF AHFAQ MEHMOOD AND OTHERS

Citation

[2021] HKCFI 3820
Court

Court of First Instance
Case number

HCCC138/2020

Most proposed s65C admitted facts were inadmissible because the VRIs did not contain admissions against interest that would advantage the defendants under the Myers exception and were often contradictory or unreliable; only basic facts such as arrests and guilty pleas could be admitted for the codefendants generally, and limited role/reward material (notably aspects of AP10's account) may be amenable to admission, but the Myers exception was not engaged for AP3, AP4, AP6, AP12 or AP13 on the evidence before the court.
18 Feb 2021

HKSAR v. YEUNG SARAH SUM YEE

Citation

[2021] HKCFI 592
Court

Court of First Instance
Case number

HCMA576/2019

The application for a s32 certificate is refused because the law is settled that statements to experts may be used only as the foundation for expert opinion not as proof of past sensations; given the applicant did not testify or submit to cross-examination the Magistrate was entitled to give the experts' opinions little weight; the issue does not raise a point of law of great and general importance warranting certification.
7 May 2018

HKSAR v. WONG WING MAN, MANDY alias WANG XUEXIN AND ANOTHER

Citation

[2018] HKCFI 1416
Court

Court of First Instance
Case number

HCCC76/2017

Statements by Cheng are admissible to be elicited from the police officer because they are tendered to show that those statements were made (a consistent family account and state of mind) and not to prove the truth of the facts asserted; statements by Wong that would be tendered to prove the truth that the mother instructed lies are inadmissible hearsay and will not be elicited.
28 Feb 2018

HKSAR v. LI CHEUNG YIN

Citation

[2018] HKCFI 581
Court

Court of First Instance
Case number

HCCC217/2017

The incoming message was inadmissible hearsay and did not satisfy the res gestae exception because its reliability could not be established: sender unknown, recipient/ownership contested, single isolated message insufficient to exclude concoction or third‑party sourcing; binding precedent in Hong Kong (Ng Kin Yee applying Kearley) requires exclusion. The correct remedy adopted was to direct the jury to ignore the message after defence consented to that course.
16 Feb 2017

HKSAR v. ZHOU LIMEI

Citation

HKSAR v. ZHOU LIMEI
Court

Court of Final Appeal
Case number

FACC10/2016

The appellant's utterance, made after her luggage had been opened, a packet sliced, a positive rapid test reported and after arrest and caution, was not reasonably capable of being an admission that she 'all along' knew she was carrying dangerous drugs (the version including the Cantonese particle '啩' expressed uncertainty); the trial judge erred in leaving the statement to the jury without first considering admissibility and the residual exclusionary discretion; the statement should be excluded and the conviction quashed with a retrial ordered.