Solicitor Acquitted

HKSAR v Bowers Kevin Richard [2019] HKDC 1225
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 898 OF 2018

On 30 September 2019, the District Court acquitted Hong Kong solicitor Kevin Bowers (“Bowers“) of two charges of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice in HKSAR v Bowers Kevin Richard [2019] HKDC 1225.

The case arose from two short “without prejudice” conversations that took place in early 2010 between Bowers (then a partner of Richards Butler), who was acting for the liquidators of a company in some civil actions against its former directors and its holding company, and two of the defendants’ solicitors (“Solicitors”). Bowers was accused to have said to the Solicitors that, if a settlement sum could be agreed with, the liquidators would “stay out of jurisdiction” and not give evidence in the parallel criminal proceedings against one of the former directors.

The District Court acquitted Bowers of both charges after trial. In relation to the first charge, the Court found the evidence of one of the Solicitors unreliable or that Bowers might have in fact said nothing improper. As for the second charge, Bowers was found not to have intended to pervert the course of justice.

Christopher Morley and William Johnson acted for the Defendant instructing Graham Harris SC leading Benson Tsoi.

The Reasons for Verdict are available here.