Book Review: A Death in Hong Kong

Journal of the

Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong 香港皇家亞洲學會學報

Volume 58

2018

260

Books

A Death in Hong Kong: The MacLennan Case of 1980 and the Suppression of a Scandal by Nigel Collett Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2018, paperback. ISBN 978-962-937-347-4, HK$278 (Reviewed by Christopher Munn) On 14 January 1980 John MacLennan, an inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police, was informed by his superior that he was to be arrested the next day on charges of gross indecency with other men. The following morning MacLennan was found dead in his locked flat with five bullet wounds in his chest and abdomen, a police revolver near his body, and a note saying ‘Please, please, tell my parents that it was an accident and I was a good Police Officer.’ A coroner’s jury refused to find a verdict of suicide. Suspicions then spread that MacLennan had been murdered, or hounded to his death, because he knew too much about homosexuality among men in high places. Homosexual acts were then illegal in Hong Kong. A Special Investigation Unit (SIU), formed to investigate procurers and paedophiles, had, on the instructions of a zealous new Attorney General, John Griffiths, extended its investigations to suspected homosexuals in the police, the civil service and the legal profession. The public outcry over MacLennan’s death forced the Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, to appoint a commission of inquiry, which, after a year of hearings in public, concluded that MacLennan had committed suicide. Ever since, the mystery of how he could have fired so many bullets into his own body has sustained conspiracy theories about murderers hiding in wardrobes and massive police cover-ups.

Nigel Collett’s superb account of the MacLennan case takes a long hard look at the facts. Collett accepts the conclusion of suicide: the antiquated revolver used by MacLennan leaked gas and had barely any recoil; only two of the bullets, fired at point blank range, passed through his body. However, he sees MacLennan as a victim in a high-level conspiracy to protect senior officials suspected of homosexual activities, some with young teenagers, some allegedly arranged through Triad panders. Among these officials were the Chief Justice and his predecessor, the Commissioner of Police and his predecessor, and several other senior police officers, civil servants and members of the Judiciary. Although MacLennan had seen files on some of these cases during a brief stint in Special Branch, he was not pursued because he knew too much. Rather, he was an easy and tempting target—a bisexual who led

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an outwardly conventional life while maintaining secret sexual relations with various male Chinese friends he had met in bars. Earlier in his career he had been peremptorily sacked for alleged homosexual conduct and then quickly reinstated. Intervention on his behalf at that time by the activist, Elsie Elliott, had angered senior police officers. Under pressure to produce results, the SIU delivered up MacLennan on a set of mostly false charges, forced out of his sexual partners by threats and inducements. To judge from their appearances before the commission, their evidence would almost certainly have failed to stand up in court. But MacLennan could not face exposure of his double life. The tipoff from his superior, well-intentioned but against police procedures, led to his decision to kill himself.

The research behind this book is formidable. Collett has secured substantial material through freedom of information requests lodged in the UK. He has made use of the archival collections of Elsie Tu (formerly Elsie Elliott) and Aileen Bridgewater, who led the campaign for an inquiry in the face of attempts to intimidate and discredit them. He has also interviewed as many of the participants in the MacLennan affair as were willing to talk to him, including the commissioner for the inquiry, T.L. Yang—later Hong Kong’s first Chinese Chief Justice (1988–96). Along with Elliot and Bridgewater, Yang is one of the few actors in this drama to emerge with some credit. Yet, while he may have been critical in many of his detailed observations, he pulled his punches in his conclusions—possibly, Collett speculates, as part of a deal to prevent changes to his terms of reference by Governor MacLehose in the final stages of the inquiry. MacLehose believed the inquiry was spiraling out of control. He was anxious about the fragile morale of the police force, which was still recovering from the anti-corruption campaigns of the 1970s. He did not want allegations against prominent men to see the light of day. He also wished to protect his Attorney General, John Griffiths, whose active mismanagement of the affair made him a primary target for criticism.

Collett weaves the strands of this complex affair into a compelling narrative, set against larger contradictions in the colony during the final years of MacLehose’s progressive but autocratic governorship. The pen-portraits of the large cast of characters are subtle and balanced, so that one develops a certain sympathy even for some of the less savoury personalities. Collett is cautious in approaching unproven allegations and takes care to point out how far the known facts support his occasional speculations, which are well argued and for the most part persuasive. He handles the sprawling commission of inquiry with great flair,

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skillfully describing the strategies of lawyers and the manoeuvrings behind the scenes and building real momentum in his riveting account of its final stages.

There are occasional flashes of humour, for example in the descriptions of the plodding activities of the SIU, a posting for ‘the lame and the weary and anyone they wanted to get rid of […], including myself’, as one of its officers told the commission. But the overall picture is one of tragedy and blight. Nowhere is this more poignantly brought out than in the account of the government’s callous treatment of MacLennan’s family, who were browbeaten into allowing cremation of MacLennan’s body against their religious beliefs, and who received his ashes in Scotland in a casket marked with the wrong name.

Eventually, in 1991, Hong Kong decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, implementing recommendations by a committee chaired by T.L. Yang in the wake of the MacLennan controversy.

Decriminalisation came during the final, liberalising phase of British rule, as the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984) and the Bill of Rights (1991) forced the government to clean up the statute book in preparation for 1997.

Through its careful and even-handed study of the MacLennan case, A Death in Hong Kong tells us much about how the unreformed colonial system operated.

It is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the murkier side of what many consider to be Hong Kong’s golden era of government, and a sobering corrective for those who look back on these years with nostalgia.

Publications of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong The Journal The Society has published a Journal since 1961. It was published as the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1961 until 2003, then changed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch and 香港皇家亞洲學會學報 and is now Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and 香港皇家亞洲學會學報. The Journal is available online: Volumes 1-51 at http://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkjo/ browseIssue?book=b27720780 and all volumes at https://www.jstor.org/ journal/jroyaaisasocihkb. Members of the Society receive a copy of the Journal and a regular Newsletter.

Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series In 2005 the Society produced the first volume in this series, the aim being to help make available important studies of the local history, culture and society of Hong Kong and the surrounding region. Generous support from the Sir Lindsay and Lady May Ride Memorial Fund makes it possible to publish this series. The early volumes were published with Hong Kong University Press, but since 2016 the Society and the Ride Fund have worked with other publishers.

To date the Hong Kong Studies Series includes 26 titles. A list of titles that can be ordered from the Society is at http://www.royalasiaticsociety. org.hk/hong-kong-studies-series. A complete list appears in the Society’s Newsletter, published six times a year, available in e-copy from http:// www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk/new-page/. An order form and price list is in the Newsletter, or may be obtained directly from the Administrator: HYPERLINK "mailto:membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk" membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk.

The Sir Lindsay and May Ride Memorial Fund was established in 2003 by the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and is named after the ViceChancellor of the University of Hong Kong 1949-64 and his wife, both founder members of the RASHK.

Other Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Publications Since 1980, in addition to the Journal and the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series, either alone or jointly with other publishers, the Society has published occasional works written or edited by members. The titles can be consulted on the Society’s website at http:// www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk/books/. Some volumes are out of print.