HKSAR V. CHAN CHUN CHUEN (30/10/2015, CACC233/2013)
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HKSAR v. CHAN CHUN CHUEN (30/10/2015, CACC233/2013) Home | Go to Word | Print | CACC233/2013 IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 233 OF 2013 (ON APPEAL FROM HCCC NO. 182 OF 2012) ____________ BETWEEN HKSAR Respondent and CHAN CHUN CHUEN (陳振聰) Applicant ____________ Before : Hon Lunn VP, Poon and Pang JJA in Court Date of Hearing : 17, 18, 21-24 September 2015 Date of Judgment : 30 October 2015 ________________________ J U D G M E N T ________________________ Hon Lunn VP (giving the Judgment of the Court) : 1. The applicant seeks leave to appeal against his conviction on 4 July 2013 after trial by Macrae J, as Macrae JA was then, and a jury of a count of forgery of the will of Nina Kung (Count 1), and a count of using that will (Count 2), contrary to sections 71 and 73 respectively of the Crimes Ordinance, Cap. 200 (the ‘Ordinance’). In addition, the applicant seeks leave to appeal against the sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment imposed on him by the judge in respect of each of the two counts, which sentences were ordered to be served concurrently. The indictment http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?DIS=101120&currpage=T[30-Oct-2015 15:55:29] HKSAR v. CHAN CHUN CHUEN (30/10/2015, CACC233/2013) Count 1 2. The Particulars of Offence of Count 1 alleged that between 15 October 2006 and 8 April 2007 the applicant made a will of Nina Kung, to whom reference will be made by her married name Mrs Nina Wang, bearing the date of 16 October 2006: “ …. which was false in that it purported to be made in the form that it was made by a person who did not in fact make it in that form with the intention that Chan Chun-chuen or another should use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of their accepting it, to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.” Count 2 3. The Particulars of Offence of Count 2 alleged that, between 4 April 2007 and 3 February 2010, the applicant used that purported will: “ …which was and which he knew or believed to be false, with the intention of inducing somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it, do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.” The trial 4. Mrs Nina Wang was born in Shanghai. Her Hong Kong identity card stated that she was born on 29 September 1937.[1] On 29 September 1955, she married Mr Teddy Wang The Huei.[2] In the early 1960s they entered the property development business in Hong Kong. They were successful and the Chinachem Group of companies, as they came to be called, became the largest private property developer in Hong Kong.[3] 5. On 12 April 1983, Mr Teddy Wang and Mrs Nina Wang were kidnapped. Mrs Nina Wang was released and, on her raising and paying a ransom of US$11 million, Mr Teddy Wang was released.[4] 6. On 5 August 1988 the Chinachem Charitable Foundation Limited, a charitable company, was established under the laws of Hong Kong.[5] 7. On 10 April 1990 Mr Teddy Wang was kidnapped for a second time. A ransom of US$60 million was demanded for his release. Approximately half that sum of money was paid to accounts designated by the kidnappers. Following the arrest of some of the kidnappers in Taiwan, most of the monies that had been paid as ransom were recovered. However, Mr Teddy Wang was not released and was never seen or heard from again. He is presumed dead.[6] 8. In about April 1997, Mr Wang Din Shin, Mr Teddy Wang’s father, applied to the High Court for leave to swear that Mr Teddy Wang was dead, so that he could apply for the probate of Mr Teddy Wang’s will dated 15 April 1968, under which he was the sole http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?DIS=101120&currpage=T[30-Oct-2015 15:55:29] HKSAR v. CHAN CHUN CHUEN (30/10/2015, CACC233/2013) beneficiary. Subsequently, Mrs Nina Wang sought to propound Mr Teddy Wang’s will dated 12 March 1990.[7] On 16 September 2005, the Court of Final Appeal pronounced in favour of the will dated 12 March 1990, in which the entire estate was bequeathed to Mrs Nina Wang.[8] 9. On 28 July 2002 Mrs Nina Wang executed a will in the presence of two attesting witnesses, namely Mr Heng Kim Thiam and Mr Eric Li Chi Ming, in which she bequeathed her entire estate to the Chinachem Charitable Foundation.[9] The prosecution case 10. It was the prosecution case that although Mr Teddy Wang was not seen again after he had been kidnapped in April 1990, Mrs Nina Wang continued to believe that he was alive and that they would be reunited eventually. In 1992, she was introduced to the applicant who claimed to have expertise in feng shui and knowledge of the whereabouts of Mr Teddy Wang. From that time onwards the applicant provided Mrs Nina Wang with feng shui advice, which included digging holes at a number of Chinachem Group sites and received payments at her direction of about $3 billion in return. 11. On three separate occasions, namely 13 December 2005, 29/30 June 2006 and 23 October 2006, on Mrs Nina Wang’s directions, three separate payments of $688 million each were made to the account of the Offshore Group Holdings Limited, which was a British Virgin Islands company beneficially owned or controlled by the applicant.[10] 12. In January 2004, Mrs Nina Wang was diagnosed with cancer.[11] In January 2005, she was advised that it was incurable.[12] She received treatment in the United States of America. Then, as her health deteriorated, she also received treatment first in Singapore in October 2005[13] and finally in October 2006 in Hong Kong[14]. 13. On 16 October 2006, Mrs Nina Wang was scheduled to meet her doctors at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital. This was the first time that she had sought treatment for her cancer in Hong Kong. Before doing so she executed a document which made provision for a bequest to the applicant in the sum of money in excess of $10 million. She signed the document in the presence of Mr Winfield Wong, a solicitor, and Mr Ng Shu Mo, a long-standing employee of the Chinachem Group of companies. Each of them signed the document. She met her doctors at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital at 5:30 p.m. that day and arrangements were made for her admission on 18 October 2006 for chemotherapy treatment.[15] 14. It was the prosecution case that the document found its way into the hands of the applicant and formed the basis of the forged will, which bore the same date, propounded http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?DIS=101120&currpage=T[30-Oct-2015 15:55:29] HKSAR v. CHAN CHUN CHUEN (30/10/2015, CACC233/2013) by the applicant. 15. Mrs Nina Wang’s health continued to deteriorate and on 3 April 2007 she died in the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital.[16] 16. Following her death, the applicant produced a document which purported to be the will of Mrs Nina Wang dated 16 October 2006, in which he was stipulated to be the sole beneficiary of her entire state.[17] He said that he had been given a signed copy of the document, together with an unsigned version of the same document, in an envelope on the evening of 16 October 2006 by Mrs Nina Wang in her private quarters at Chinachem headquarters. 17. The conflicting terms of the two wills, the 2002 Will in which the Chinachem Charitable Foundation was the sole beneficiary, and the 2006 Will in which the applicant was the sole beneficiary, led to civil proceedings in the High Court. The prosecution adduced into evidence five witness statements filed by the applicant in those proceedings, together with a transcript of his evidence. Four of the statements were summarised. Also, the prosecution relied upon a video recorded interview conducted of the applicant by police officers. Finally, a summary of the evidence of the applicant in those proceedings was put before the jury. It was the prosecution case that, while some of the matters referred to by the applicant in those out-of-court statements were true, the applicant had told lies, in particular in respect of the circumstances in which he had come by the document which he propounded as the 2006 Will of Mrs Nina Wang. 18. It was the prosecution case that the document dated 16 October 2006 produced by the applicant was not the document bearing the same date signed by Mrs Nina Wang, Mr Winfield Wong and Mr Ng Shu Mo. For his part, Mr Winfield Wong said that the document that he had witnessed Mrs Nina Wang signing on 16 October 2006, which he and Mr Ng had also signed, was a single page typed document in English in which a sum of something in excess of $10 million was bequeathed by Mrs Nina Wang to a stipulated person. It was, as he described to her at the time, a “partial will”.