John MacLennan

John MacLennan (, 1950–1980) was a Scottish police officer in Hong Kong who had worked in a police unit involving homosexuals. His suspicious death in 1980 after being charged with gross indecency with a teenager drew public concern and turned into a cause célèbre, known as the MacLennan Affair, owing to his previous work in the police force, and eventually led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1991.

John MacLennan John MacLennan was born on 3 October 1950 in Nigg, Highland of Scotland. He passed out of training in 1969 and, after three years in Stirling, he joined the Hong Kong Police Force in 1973, stationing in Kwun Tong of East Kowloon. :1,7,30 Upon his request, MacLennan was transferred to the Special Branch in late 1976 as he was approaching the end of his two-and-a-half year contract. MacLennan was entrusted to, at first, vet the government servants, not long before he was given the lists of the government's known and suspected homosexuals, a task usually dedicated to expatriate inspectors. It was during that time he found the names of deputy police commissioner Roy Henry and head of Police Public Relations Wing Ron Redpath on the lists; the rumours did not cause harm to any of them. (In 1966 it was claimed that there had been a homosexual ring involving numerous prominent Hong Kong citizens that could blow up a "political dynamite" if exposed.)

Death

On 14 January 1980, MacLennan, knowing the SIU was after him, was forewarned by the divisional superintendent that he would be interviewed by the SIU on the next day, to which he stuttered in reply. MacLennan told his colleagues that he was persecuted for investigating senior officers and "queer hawks" during his time in Special Branch, and his lover that he was very frightened about it. One of the theories is that two triad members in the police force, both later murdered on separate occasions, killed MacLennan with four shots near the chest after he shot himself in the abdomen. As the police did not have standard protocols for investigating apparent suicide with multiple gunshots, the first responders did not collect adequate findings and therefore making it impossible to prove that MacLennan killed himself. the most expensive public inquiry in Hong Kong, the report produced by the "Commission of Inquiry into Inspector MacLennan's Case" was published on 29 August 1981. The commission concurred that MacLennan committed suicide, No official or police officers was ever dismissed or sanctioned for their roles in the death. The public debate flared up further, with the religious sectors leading the calls to stop decriminalisation effort, and majority of the Legislative Council remained defiant against decrminalise homosexual acts in 1987.

In 1990, the Legislative Council passed a motion by 31–13 supporting decriminalisation; Elliott, now known as Elsie Tu, was one of those voting yes. The government then drafted the Crimes (Amendment) Bill 1991 that lays out the framework of the proposal. Although the society generally reacted negatively to it, the government found it necessary as the penalties imposed on homosexuals could run contrary to the Bill of Rights. The bill was enacted in July 1991.