Family blast police over handling of autistic man's arrest, detention
Family claim that after wrongly holding him for murder amid media glare, officers denied medication to intellectually disabled detainee
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 10 May, 2015, 6:17am
UPDATED : Sunday, 10 May, 2015, 8:01am
Amy Nip [email protected]
The arrest was on May 2.
The family of an autistic man wrongly accused of murder and subjected to the full media glare as he was taken away by police have slammed the force over the handling of his arrest.
The 30-year-old man was arrested on May 2 in connection with the killing of an elderly man in Sha Tin last month. His family say they told the police he had mental-health problems and required medication. But they claim the police pressed ahead.
Yesterday the man's younger brother, surnamed Au, said: "I told the police that my younger brother is autistic and intellectually disabled, and that he must take medication according to a doctor's instruction.
"The police did not arrange any medical staff to treat my brother. As a result, in the 50-hour-plus period he was detained from May 2 to 4, my brother did not take any medicine."
The younger brother was arrested on May 2 on suspicion of killing a 73-year-old man in a basketball court in Mei Lam Estate.
It was a highly publicised arrest. It was made after the old man died in hospital on April 13 after an alleged assault by a younger man.
Police laid a holding charge against the autistic man with one count of manslaughter last Monday, saying the case would be mentioned at Sha Tin Court a day later. But hours later, just past midnight, the holding charge was dropped.
The arrestee was later released because he had an alibi - he was staying in a Tuen Mun institute at the time of the assault.
Under police guidelines, arrestees who have pills on them should have their medical needs catered to, lawmaker Dr Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung said. He claimed officers used leading questions and failed to recognise his condition.
"They asked him a lot of yes-no questions like 'did you go to the basketball court', 'did you see the elderly man' and 'did you push him' … the problem is autistic people have the tendency to repeat what others say to them."
The quiet release of the man after his public arrest was unfair and potentially dangerous to him, as he could be despised as a "killer" in the neighbourhood, Cheung added.
The family wants an apology and has called on the police to step up training on how to handle the intellectually disabled.
A police spokesman said that once evidence suggested the man was not at the crime scene, he was released on bail on Monday. When officers confirmed he was not there, he was released unconditionally on Thursday.
He said arrested people who did not feel well could ask to go to hospital. However, the man in this case did not make a request.
Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok said the police always sought to "find the truth" during all investigations and would act appropriately in response to new evidence.
