Officer says he can’t speculate on ‘terrorist’ crash

A policeman testifying on day three of Tong Ying-kit’s national security trial on Friday said he couldn’t speculate as to what caused the suspect’s motorbike crash with officers.

Tong, 24, is accused of inciting secession, terrorism and dangerous driving.

At the High Court, Chief inspector Ho Tsz-yiu said he was among around two dozen officers at a check line at the junction of Jaffe Road and O’Brien Road in Wan Chai on the day in question, July 1 last year.

He said when he saw Tong’s motorbike coming towards their check line, he and his team shouted loudly at the defendant to stop.

But instead of stopping, he said, the motorbike accelerated after overtaking a private car, before running into three of his colleagues who fell to the ground injured.

The chief inspector also said some protesters had thrown hard objects from a footbridge as the police team subdued the defendant on the ground after the crash.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Clive Grossman played video footage recorded by a camera in a private car. The video showed that a policeman going near the motorbike was initially holding a shield, but was without it moments before the bike crashed.

Grossman asked Ho whether he could tell whether the policeman had thrown his shield, but he said he didn’t know.

The defence lawyer went on to ask the chief inspector if he agreed that the defendant was either hit or distracted by the shield – resulting in an accident. But the witness said he could not speculate on the cause of the crash.

Asked whether he could see from video footage that a police officer had hit Tong after the defendant had fallen to the ground, Ho said he did not see anyone hitting him.

Meanwhile, detective Ng Tai-shing told the court that he had lost his grip on a police shield while trying to stop Tong on Jaffe Road.

The detective said he had initially wanted to stop the defendant as he was driving through a narrow space between a car and some parked vehicles. But he said he decided that he couldn’t stop him because the bike was going too fast.

Instinctively and out of fear of being hit by the motorbike, he used his shield to block it, he said.

The detective said he wasn’t sure whether the shield had hit Tong.

The officer is expected to continue giving evidence on Monday.