HKSAR v. LEUNG CHUN HO

DCCC501/2010

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 501 OF 2010

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to an offence of wounding with intent, contrary to Section 17A of the Offences Against the Persons Ordinance. You admitted that on 18 April 2010 at your home that you shared with the victim, your girlfriend and mother of your two children, that you unlawfully and maliciously wounded her with intent to do her grievous bodily harm. Your residence was 1st Floor, No. 30 Wang Long Village, Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island.

2.  You, your girlfriend (the victim) your two children, your parents and your younger brother resided at the premises in question. At the material time the victim was a housewife and you were employed on a part-time basis. At about 10 am on Sunday, April 18, whilst you were at home with the victim you asked her to go out and buy you bread and cigarettes. She came home only with cigarettes. You then turned into a rage and started throwing things on the floor. The victim did not reply or say anything. You scolded her for not replying and suddenly grabbed her with both hands and pulled her into your bedroom. Inside your bedroom you punched her head and back with your fists. During the course of the attack you picked up a Stanley knife which is commonly known as a paper cutter, a sharp object, and pointed it at her. You shouted that you would disfigure her with the knife as she was having an affair with another man. You then attempted to use the knife to slash her face. She used her hands to fend off the knife and as a result both of her hands sustained serious injuries. Eventually after a struggle, the she managed to escape from the bedroom and shouted for help on the balcony of the house. You warned her not to shout or else you would cause trouble to her maiden family. She eventually stopped shouting and you left the house. The victim then relayed the incident to your brother who was at all times in his bedroom and she then reported the matter to police.

3.  You were intercepted by police officers at about 1.50 pm later that day. You admitted you had assaulted her and had caused her to sustain the injuries earlier that day. Your girlfriend was admitted to hospital and the medical findings were as follows:

- A 3 cm laceration with bone exposed over her left hand web space between thumb and index finger;

- A 1 cm laceration over her left thumb;

- 1 cm superficial laceration over her right hand dorsum;

- Left forehead 1 cm urethra;

- Bruise over right cheek and right lower lip swelling.

The victim was then transferred to the orthopaedic ward of the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital and was diagnosed to have suffered from a cut right thumb with cut tendon, a cut right middle finger with cut tendon and a cut left thumb with cut ulna digital nerve. Emergency operation under general anaesthesia was performed, surgical toilet and suturing, extensive tendon and nerve repair were performed. She was discharged on the following day with a splint. As of today, she is currently undergoing a rehabilitation programme with occupational and physiotherapy.

4.  Mr Phil Chau, your counsel, has made full mitigation on the last occasion and today. On the last occasion I called for a psychological report and a background report because I was very concerned that you should react so violently and fly into a rage unprovoked but for the fact that your girlfriend did not bring home bread. It appears clearly, however, that the underlying factor for you flying into this rage was that you had suspected her of having an affair because you had checked the phone records on her mobile phone and noticed a particular number had been dialled on numerous occasions. These suspicions, you say, had been going on for about a month to which you say you confronted the victim but she denied it.

5.  You are 31 years of age and you have 10 previous convictions. These convictions are not necessarily minor. You have convictions for burglary, conspiracy to rob, robbery, conspiracy to blackmail, a number of convictions of theft and possession of dangerous drugs. These date back to 1995. However, I note since 2004, some six years previously, you have been out of trouble with the law.

6.  The background report is fairly brief. In summary what it tells me is that you were quite an outstanding academic student until your teens when you associated with undesirable peers and that is when you turned wayward and subsequently repeatedly transgressed the law. Your life appeared more stable after you cohabitated with the victim, Madam Chan.

7.  As to the psychological report, the report is much more detailed, however the psychologist was only able to have one interview with you, as for the second interview you chose to remain silent. Your counsel, Mr Phil Chau, has asked me to give you another opportunity to see a psychologist for a second interview as he has explained to you the purpose of this interview and you now realise the assistance that this would lend you. I, however, see there to be no need for a second interview. The opportunity was given to you these last two weeks and what is in the report is sufficient for me to sentence you.

8.  Mr Chao says there are two parts that are in dispute on the reports. Background report: you disagree that the victim’s family have applied for a housing transfer because you threatened to cause trouble to her maiden family. You deny you have threatened to cause trouble to her family. The second disagreement is in the psychological report whereby in paragraph 6 Madam Chan says that you had assaulted her previously. You deny ever assaulting Miss Chan previously.

9.  As to the first matter about threatening to cause trouble to her maiden family, for whatever reasons it appears that the family have applied for housing transfer. As for the assault on the victim, I look at you generally, your character, as to what type of person you are. From your record I can see that you have been violent previously and from your frank admissions in paragraph 5 of the psychologist’s report I can also see that you resort to violence easily. Paragraph 5 says you were particularly jealous of the victim when she hung out with other males. You admitted that when you noticed other males approach her in the street, you and/or your followers, i.e. you admit being a triad member and those are your followers, have verbal fights and sometimes physical fights with the males. In those circumstances I see that you are yourself a person who resorts to violence easily and quickly.

10.  What can be seen from this report, as Mr Chau your counsel says, you are a very jealous man which unfortunately leads you to feelings of insecurity in your relationship. You admitted you regard the victim as a playful young adult and loved social functions. Although not stated in the report particularly, it is clear it was in 2004 when you first started a relationship with the victim, that is some six years ago. She is now 21, that makes her 15 when you started. It is of no surprise to me that the victim is an immature young lady having started the relationship with you at the very young age of 15. Your mother has also observed that you and the victim would need some assistance in childcare and that is why she had assisted you.

11.  Meanwhile, it appears from the report in paragraph 6 that your mother even considered you hot-tempered and scolded the victim when she grumbled at you. The victim too was relatively too dependant and immature. She had never been employed. She was ignorant about doing household work or taking care of the family, therefore you often had conflicts over these trivial matters. At the time the victim moved to live with you, your mother also had some reservation on your relationship with her because of the victim’s cognitive immaturity, that is why she decided to live with you, particularly when you had children.

12.  The clinical impression by the psychologist was that you have a weak temper and impulse control, your history of triad affiliation means that you are likely to hold a significant degree of subculture attitudes including power control, use of aggression to resolve conflict and the need to behave strong in front of others in the pursuit of heroism. When you were provoked and felt insulted you thought using violence, either verbally or physically, as an expression of your rage and indication of your power was correct.

13.  The psychologist says that you were maladaptive in maintaining a loving relationship. Given the unresolved issues of your tension with the victim, your maladaptive attitude supporting violent use in conflict resolution, history of partner assault reported only by the victim and the minimisation of your wrongdoings, your risk of re-offending with your girlfriend being the victim again should not be underestimated.

14.  It appears to me that the whole basis for this very serious wounding was fired-off by your trying to show the victim your power and use of aggression to resolve the fact that she did not listen to you and also on your clear jealousy towards her. You had, as admitted in the facts, very dangerously picked up the Stanley knife, pointed it at her, shouted at her that you were going to disfigure her with the knife as she was having an affair with another man. This was an extremely violent and cold hearted intention to injure her face, the most vulnerable place of a person’s body, particularly a woman. You then lashed at her intending to slash her face. Had she not fended you off with her hands one wonders what would have been the horrendous and horrific consequences of a knife attack on her face given what, as is seen now, were the serious injuries to her fingers.

15.  I accept that your family have written various letters to the court asking for your leniency and of course the victim herself has written a note to say she has forgiven you for the domestic violence matter which happened and she earnestly wishes me to accept her written notice. I am not here as a family judge to decide what is happening within this family. It appears to me, however, it is not as solid as Mr Chau would perhaps put forward. In the reports the victim has expressed that she is seeking to separate with you, the defendant, that is in the psychological report. In the background report it says that the victim had visited you twice during your present remand and she had not thought through whether to maintain your relationship. You have been in custody since the date of this offence in April. I am not sure why the victim has only visited you twice, it is now the end of August. Nevertheless, it is for you and her and perhaps Social Workers to get involved or even your family to work out something between you in regard to your relationship. What I am here to do now is to sentence you for this offence you have committed.

16.  Mr Chau and Mr Cheng have both said they have searched through the previous cases and can find nothing similar to the present case. I too have not been able to find anything similar. What Mr Chau rightly recognises however, is that this offence warrants an immediate and in his words “lengthy custodial sentence” and what I do of course recognise is the fact that you have pleaded guilty to this offence and that shows to me your clear remorse.

17.  I must in sentencing you look at the injuries suffered by the victim. Although I accept there are no permanent injuries, nevertheless they were severe injuries and over her hand. At the material time you both had two young children, one was aged 2 years and 10 months, the other was aged 4 months. As a mother looking after such young babies the use of one’s hands are of utmost importance in looking after them to carry them, feed them and bathe them. I have no doubt this would have prohibited her carrying out her full maternal duties.

18.  Defendant, as I said earlier, you unprovokedly lashed out at the victim, first by pulling and dragging her into the bedroom, punching her head and back with your fists. Not being satisfied with that treatment you picked up a knife with the intention to disfigure her face. She then used her hands to deflect you and that is when you caused these serious injuries on her hands. You are a man who has a history of violent offences, you resort to violence and aggression to resolve conflict and you are a person of weak temper and impulse control. Had I convicted you after trial having taken account of all these factors I would have taken a starting point of 2½ years’ imprisonment. However, giving you full credit for your plea of guilty, I reduce that term to one of 1 year and 8 months’ imprisonment to which you are so sentenced.