Case Explained: Families of Hong Kong ferry crash victims say verdict won’t bring closure – Legal Perspective

Alice Leung Shuk-ling has spent more than a decade seeking the truth behind a ferry crash in 2012 that killed her younger brother and 38 others, and she expects a Coroner’s Court verdict due on Wednesday to be merely an ellipsis – not a full stop – in her quest.

Leung, 40, said she never expected that last year’s 44-day inquest on the Lamma IV crash would unearth all the answers families of the deceased had demanded for years.

But she believed the inquest held a “symbolic meaning” for those who wanted to know why and how their loved ones met their tragic end.

The Lamma IV was struck by the Sea Smooth catamaran while carrying 124 HK Electric employees and their relatives to watch the National Day fireworks over Victoria Harbour on October 1, 2012.

The coroner is expected to hand down a verdict on the cause of the tragedy on Wednesday, nearly 13 years after a commission of inquiry on the collision submitted a report to the government in April 2013.

The government had also conducted internal investigations, while separate police probes resulted in the prosecution and convictions of several parties.