HKSAR v. YEUNG KI

HCCC 242/2013

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 242 OF 2013

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT: The jury have acquitted you of murder and convicted you of manslaughter. The trial was concerned with the issues of provocation and diminished responsibility. The focus has been on you and your state of mind. It is right, therefore, that this court, when it comes to sentence, addresses the balance and publicly emphasises the gravity of your conduct. The victim must be acknowledged.

It was a wicked act to sever his penis and notwithstanding his provocative behaviour it must be remembered that you took his life. He was a healthy young man. We know he had a family, parents and a wife and they will miss him and grieve for him.

I will deal with you on the basis that his conduct was of the kind to which you testified and which the prosecution did not contest. The violence to you and your young daughter and being forced to have sexual intercourse against your will whilst your daughter was present in that small flat reduced your responsibility for and mitigate the killing.

I also accept that your mental state was such that it reduced your responsibility. I will proceed on the basis of the evidence of Dr Wong to the effect that the stressful and provocative events of the day in question would have affected you in a way significantly differently from someone who enjoyed good mental health and that your longstanding disease of recurrent depressive disorder was engaged.

It was common ground amongst the psychiatrists that if you were pushed into sudden relapse then the state of your mind would not have equipped you adequately to deal with those provocative features that caused the relapse.

I remember that you have never denied unlawful killing and indeed you admitted it as a fact in the trial. I perceive genuine remorse in your troubled mind. I will give you credit for the plea of guilty to manslaughter that you tendered before me. Without it the sentence would have to have been just in excess of 10 years.

The situation is thus one where you’ve committed a very grave crime yet there is substantial mitigation by reason of provocation and diminished responsibility. I know you appreciate that you must be punished. The verdict of the jury saved you from what would otherwise have been life imprisonment.

In my judgment, the right sentence is one of 7 years’ imprisonment and that is the sentence I pass upon you.