Charles Police Frameup

08/10/2002

I can quite understand why you wanted to make yourself scarce after the accident. I had to part with 2000 yuan on Monday (they asked for 5000)and they thought you should put in 50%.

The sooner you send some supporting evidence, the better. However, the villagers have dreamt up a completely different story of me driving erratically and running down the boy as he quietly cycled along the edge of the road, and the police are busy concocting evidence to make the accident appear my fault. Now read on...

Visit to Police and Accident Site Saturday 10 August 2001

This morning I left the hotel to visit my insurers, the People's Insurance Company of China (PICC). Their offices are on the other side of Shigatse and I thought I should drop by my car and collect all the documents in it, feeling sure that if I arrived at the PICC without something it would be a problem.

At the Traffic Police, I removed documents and also some foodstuffs etc so I could have breakfast in the morning without leaving the hotel. Jam, knife, cereal bowl were some of the items.

I went to the toilet at the traffic police station, then while walking back to the car noticed a PICC van in the vehicle holding yard. I thought I should sort the insurance matter out immediately.

After some waiting, gesticulation, production of my insurance card and so on, "Wuling" (the make of my vehicle) and "laowai" (foreigner) came to the lips of the PICC people. They walked with me up to the vehicle. The police superintendent arrived on the scene and an interpreter was called. Shortly, PICC had assessed the damage to my car at about 470 yuan (110 Australian dollars) but I pointed out that this was not the real problem. The real problem and liability is the boy in hospital with probably fatal head injuries. After more discussion, the interpreter told me that my policy did cover that liability, as you would expect it to.

A crowd of people gathered around and examined the car. There seemed to be general agreement that the car had hit the boy and bicycle side-on, and I explained to two people who turned up how the boy and suddenly veered in front of me. I produced a diagram I had drawn on Monday afternoon to show the interpreter and a few others what had happened. The police superintendent came over, produced a blue pen, and put in a 30km/hr sign. He let me know through the interpreter that I had admitted to exceeding this speed and thus the accident was my fault. This was very surprising, as I had not seen a sign as I approached the village and indeed such signs are a rarity in rural China. I admitted I had not seen the sign, but insisted that I needed to go back and see the accident site in daylight before the police superintendent apportions fault on Monday. One of the interpreters, a Han (Chinese) told me not to worry, that the police chief would be very fair in assessing blame, especially as I was a foreigner (I had asked to accompany the police to the village at the beginning of the week, but they didn't contact me as promised).

Shortly, a dark green Mitsubishi 4WD without registration plates was waiting for us. I was to travel with the police chief, driver and two interpreters to the accident site. I sat in the back. No-one wore seat belts, but the driver travelled unusually slowly - about 70km/hr, the whole way to the accident site, about 19km west of Shigatse. The Mitsubishi pulled up beside a very prominent 30km/hr sign. I had to admit that I had not seen it previously. I also noted that every car that drove past was vastly exceeding the limit, many of them travelling as fast as 100kph. I took a photograph of the sign and a sign painted on the wall in Chinese apparently told passing traffic to slow down. There was little evidence of traffic slowing, except for a pastel green local bus which slowed dramatically when he saw police officers standing around, then sped off.

Then I noticed that the 30km/hr sign was very new. The cement it was set in was still very dark grey, while the earth that had been excavated was very fresh and clearly showed footprints. Despite rain during the last couple of days, the soil still appeared highly disturbed. I told the police present that I thought the sign had been erected since the accident. This was immediately denied. I pointed out the fresh footprints and photographed the area immediately. The police interpreter told me first that the sign had been there a month, and then said it had been put in for the Panchen Lama's visit to the area in June. This is completely at odds with the veryfresh nature of the soil. Had it been erected in June, grass would have grownup through and around the sign. This was in no way evident and it was obvious that the police superintendent and interpreters were all lying in concert. The only reason they would be doing this would be to obtain a share in a large damages payment to the parents of the child.

The 30kph sign was next to a long mud/earth wall which stretched away into the distance. I could not see a village from the sign and wondered where it was. I asked to continue to the village. The police told me through the interpreter that there was nothing to see. I was pretty sure there was and starting walking to the village. I walked for (an estimated) 600 metres, the wall still was on my right, and there were a few buildings just visible some distance ahead around a slight bend lined with trees. The green Mitsubishi drew along side me and took me into the village. We found the blood stain of the boy still on the road and tried to assess where the point of impact may have been (the sort of thing that should have been done on the night of the accident or the day after). Looking at the scene, it was clear that trees growing close to the edge of the road on the curve obstructed the view both of the village and of anyone (such as the cyclist) on the edge of the road. I walked back to get a better view and photograph of the accident scene from that perspective, then returned to the police. I wanted to see the other 30kph sign.

The police refused point-blank to take me to the other sign. There was nothing to see, and they had to take the car back to Shigatse immediately because it had been borrowed. I told them it would only take a minute to go to the sign, but they steadfastly refused and I finally removed all my possessions from their vehicle, and told them I would look around without them, then hitch back to Shigatse.

To my surprise, there actually was a sign. The one on the west side of the village had been almost a kilometre from the village, but the one on the eastern approaches was only a couple of hundred metres away. It was also very fresh, and indeed some of the grass which had been pulled out while it was being emplaced was still very green. Despite the warm weather of most of the past week, it had not lost its colour. Again, the soil around the sign was still highly disturbed, it showed no indication of having been in place for anything like a month. And there was a very fresh patch on the road where the concrete had been mixed for the sign's footing.

After photographing this sign and especially its footing from every conceivable aspect, I walked back through the village. I was mobbed by children who swarmed onto the road. Mostly they were looking for money,but they showed absolutely no road sense despite the accident of less than a week before. I shouted at them to get off the road, pushing them at times.

Shortly I hitched a lift with a small crew-cab utility vehicle into Shigatse. On the way, I could not help but notice that the next village had no speed limit signs. In the outskirts of Shigatse, there was a totally-ignored, bent, rusty sign reading 20kph. Mostly, you never see any speed-limit signs at all in rural Tibet, Qinghai and Sichuan. I cannot speak for the rest of the country, not having seen it.

About half-way back to Shigatse, we passed the police vehicle. Their haste to get me away from the site had not been matched by a haste to get to Shigatse. They must have had a bit of a conference on the way into town. Most disturbing matter I guess, a foreigner realising that he is being framed by the local traffic police superintendent.

It is essential that this matter is removed from the hands of the traffic superintendent and put into the hands of someone independent as soon as possible - the judiciary if possible, if such exists.

SO PLEASE SEND AN ACCOUNT OF THE INCIDENT BY EMAIL ASAP, and a certified copy of your notes as soon as possible after that. Otherwise I might end up in prison for a long time.

Regards

Charles Poynton _ _ ______________________________________________________ _ _

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