I would like to apologise to all the honest, hard working police men and women of Hong Kong who strive, often in trying conditions, to keep Hong Kong the safe and secure place we all enjoy living in. Prior to last week my trust and faith in you, the policemen and women of Hong Kong was sacrosanct, inviolate. Sadly I regret, and I really I do, to say that this is no longer the case. Perhaps I was naive or unreasonable to hold you to this level of perfection, but in all my dealings with the Hong Kong Police prior to last week I had never personally seen or experienced anything to shake my faith in you. Nothing, nada - not even amidst the WTO riots did I see any of you excessively or wantonly lash out with truncheon or baton, like we sadly see all too often overseas.

But last week policewoman 8895 lied to my face. She said ‘I saw you drop that piece of paper’ and then she arrested me for criminal damage to an envelope. To say I was stunned would be the understatement of the year. You read about it in the papers, you see it fictionalised on the television; but experiencing a policewoman lying to your face just shocks and numbs one to the core. I was standing outside a building about 5 or 6 feet away from the minute scrunched up piece of paper, about half a centimetre square, speaking with three other policemen. Policewoman 8895 had spent the previous 10-15 minutes inside the building but she boldly came out and lied to my face. On the basis of her lie, I spent four hours in a police station, part of that time in a cell. I may get into trouble for writing this here, and since she has three colleagues who may support her lie, I may suffer the consequences, I accept that. But I know 8895 didn’t see me drop the paper – whether I did or didn’t drop it, I have no definite memory but it certainly didn’t happen when she could have seen it and three other policemen missed it. I know 8895 lied. I don’t know why she lied and interestingly she made no mention of her lie - sorry verbal statement - in the incident report I was handed in the station less than an hour later.

And that’s why I apologise to all the other policemen and women of Hong Kong. One officer’s action leaves my belief and trust in your collective integrity in tatters, however unfair it maybe to all the up standing individuals in the force – that seed of doubt has been placed. One might hear rumours and read stories about corruption claims against the police, but as I learned last week it takes a personal encounter with professional dishonesty to destabilize trust. Honestly, I am gutted to have that seed of doubt in my mind, to find myself no longer having implicit trust in the honesty of the police. sd