Feng shui master Peter Chan dealt another legal setback on road to Hong Kong’s top court
Jailed for forging lover Nina Wang’s will in bid to claim her HK$83 billion estate, Chan fails to convince judges that his grounds to appeal to Court of Final Appeal are ‘points of law of great general importance’
Former feng shui master Peter Chan Chun-chuen has failed to gain the endorsement from the Court of Appeal that his grounds to appeal to the top court – including that his trial counsel was incompetent – involved important law points.
One of the grounds Chan advanced – revealed in court on Monday for the first time – was that he once asked his then trial counsel Andrew Kan SC to apply for the recusal of judge Mr Justice Andrew Macrae, who tried Chan in 2013. However, his request was not pursued.
Chan was applying for a certificate from the Court of Appeal on Monday to declare his grounds to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal were “points of law of great general importance”.
READ MORE: Failed appeal sees Hong Kong feng shui master Peter Chan sent back to jail for will forgery
Chan, who lied during his civil lawsuit to claim his late lover and tycoon Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum’s HK$83 billion estate, was previously convicted of one count of forgery and another of using a false document in 2013, and jailed for 12 years.
Outside court on Monday, senior public prosecutor Anna Lai said Chan put forward the incompetence ground since Macrae mitigated for him in another deception case in 1986, when the now High Court judge was still practising as a barrister.
But his ground was turned down by Mr Justice Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor, Mr Justice Derek Pang Wai-cheong and Court of Appeal Vice-President Mr Justice Michael Lunn, who said Chan had not made the court aware of that previously.