Carson’s trial on five charges relating to section 25 of the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance (OSCO) begun on April 29 2013.

The case (which has the number DCCC860/2011) is being held in the District Court in Hong Kong. One important factor to take into account is that District Court cases are held in front of a judge only; unlike the High Court there is no jury to decide guilt.

There is a handy flowchart on the Hong Kong Judiciary’s website which shows how the case will proceed, which I have reproduced below.

The case, which was due to begin on November 28 was adjourned for five months until April 29 as it was suggested that Carson has not been able to adequately build his defence due to his assets being frozen.

On opening the case, the Defence applied for a permanent stay. What this meant was that they asked for the trial to be thrown out as they said that Carson wasn’t going to be able to have a fair trial due to an “abuse of process” – ie the prosecution had taken so long various records had been destroyed and Carson had had no chance in being able to mount his own defence. This was dismissed on May 3.

The prosecution laid out their opening arguments, stating that Carson has only reported a small amount of earnings which doesn’t correspond to the huge amounts of money that went through the accounts in question. The prosecution concluded their case on June 13, and Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong has confirmed that Carson has a case to answer.

The defence proceeded to give their evidence until the trial was called to a halt on July 12 2013 due to scheduling conflicts. At this point the defence closed their case. The case was due to be resumed on October 15 2013 for final closing arguments.

On September 26 2013, the defence made a successful application to reopen their case to allow Carson to take the stand. The case was then adjourned until October 15.

Carson took the stand in court and gave evidence to prove his innocence in the case. After a hold up due to a second application for a second permanent stay, the cross examination was completed and the case was then adjourned for final submissions until December 12.

Cross examination finished in November 2013, and the final summing up was heard on December 12.

On February 28 and March 3, Judge Yau gave his verdict, finding Carson guilty on all five counts. On March 7, Carson was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

On March 27, 2014 it was confirmed Carson has appealed his sentence. The case number for the appeal is CACC101/2014

The appeal was heard on March 11 and 12, 2015 with the judgement being handed down on May 13 2015. The appeal was dismissed by the three Court of Appeal judges, who also said that Carson had a right to take his case to the Court of Final Appeal. On June 1, the Appeal court judges refused to certify that there was a point of law to be decided in the case, forcing Carson to go directly to the Court of Final Appeal.

Carson was released on bail pending his application to Court of Final Appeal on August 14, 2015. His final appeal case number is FACC5/2015 and FACC6/2015. This will be heard from 31/5/16 to 2/6/16

You can follow updates on the case here.

The judgement and verdict are online and viewable here.

You can read the full appeal judgement here.

You can read the judgement where certification was refused here.

You can read the confirmation of Carson’s successful bail application here.

District Court details (HK Judiciary website) – link here

OSCO details link here

Page last updated February 13, 2016 1030 GMT