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Rh what he had to say to them reflected in the Police Investigation Reports and police notebooks were all matters that provided a potentially fruitful line of cross-examination of Billy Kay. Similarly, the fact that the two accomplice witnesses had been provided with their out-of-court statements and their non-prejudicial witness statements, in the days prior to the commencement of the trial, were matters that provided potentially fruitful lines of cross-examination of them.

England and Wales

76. It is to be noted that the Code of Practice, re-issued in 2015, was promulgated pursuant to section 23 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act, 1996. Sections 21 and 27 of the Act provide, broadly speaking, that the common law rules as to disclosure and criminal investigations respectively shall not apply after the Act and the Code are brought into force. In Hong Kong, we have no such legislation.

77. In the judgment of the Divisional Court in R (Ebrahim) v Feltham Magistrates’ Court Brooke LJ observed the provisions of the Code “preserve and amplify common law rules which were described by the judges before the Code came into force.” That case was concerned with the duty of investigators to ascertain, obtain and retain CCTV, if relevant to a criminal investigation.