Open Verdict: A Hong Kong Story

On 15 January 1980, a large posse of Hong Kong policemen broke into a flat in the Government quarters at Ho Man Tin and found the body of a twenty-nine year old Scottish Police Inspector, John MacLennan. He was lying in a locked, pitch-black bedroom with four bullet holes in his chest and one bullet hole in his abdomen. By his body was his service revolver, which appeared to have been the weapon used to kill him, and on his desk lay a suicide note written on the back of an envelope. The police assumed that he had killed himself. They did not bother to conduct a proper forensic investigation and the body was hastily cremated. They and the Government were taken aback when the inquest jury refused to accept that the death was suicide, and returned an open verdict.