HKSAR v. LEUNG FUNG YIN

DCCC790/2011

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 790 OF 2011

----------------------

-------------------------

Reasons for Sentence

-------------------------

1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of wounding with intent, contrary to section 17(a) of the Offences Against the Person Ordinance. You have admitted that on 27 May this year at your home in Mei Mun House, Mei Tin Estate, Tai Wai, New Territories, you unlawfully and maliciously wounded your mother-in-law, Madam Chan Ming-wai with intent to do her grievous bodily harm.

2.  You lived at that flat with your husband, the victim’s son, and your daughter who was born in August 2009 and therefore was about not quite 2 years old.  At that time your mother-in-law, aged 75, moved to live in the flat with you and her son so she could assist you to look after the baby. 

3.  On the late afternoon of 27 May you, your mother-in-law and daughter were in the flat.  Out of the blue and without saying a word, you took a chopper which was about 25 centimetres in length with a blade of 17 centimetres from the kitchen and started to chop your mother-in-law who was in the living room.  It was a frenzied attack, you chopped her several times.  Your mother-in-law asked you why you were doing it, you ignored her and continued to chop her and shouted at her to leave the home.  Fortunately, she was able to leave the house and went downstairs to seek assistance from the security guard and the case was reported to the police. 

4.  The police arrived soon after and went to the flat where they saw you and your daughter inside the living room.  You were emotional and cried when you opened the door.  At that time you claimed that you did not know what had happened.  The police noticed the bloodstains at the scene had been cleaned up.  The cloth that had been used to clean the blood was found in the toilet. 

5.  Your mother-in-law was admitted to hospital for medical treatment and stayed in hospital for approximately a month, that is from 27 May to 20 June 2011.  She had sustained stab and cut wounds on her scalp, her chin, her left arm and right forearm.  She had also sustained fractures on her left hand and right ulnar. 

6.  On that same day, your husband had received a call at about 5.50 that evening from you.  You told him your “Mother-in-law is no longer the same” and asked him to come home quickly.  Your husband sensed that something might have gone wrong and rushed home to see what was happening.  When he called home again the police were already there.

7.  Your mother-in-law had told the police that she was living in good terms with you before this incident, there had been no previous grudges and your husband confirmed the same. He had had never seen you having disputes with your mother-in-law before.  The obvious question therefore would be why did you do this? 

8.  It appears now and also from your counsel, Mr Spicer, and the reports from the doctors that you were suffering from mental illness which I shall go into later in my reasons for sentence.  Let me just say now that despite your mental illness you have been medically examined and are fit to plead.  Therefore you understand what you have done.

9.  Prior to sentencing you, in view of your mental condition I called for two psychiatric reports and a background report, to know more about you and your family and relations with your mother-in-law.  The background and psychiatric reports, Mr Spicer tells me, have been read and explained to you.  You agree to the contents of the reports save that you deny having taken Ecstasy and Ketamine previously.  All your personal circumstances and background are related in the report and I shall not reiterate those matters.

10.  You are aged 28 and married your husband in 2008 and had your daughter in 2009.  Your own parents and siblings are close and supportive of you and have concerns about your mental illness.  They support you and I have taken into account the letters that they themselves have written to me to be as lenient as I can to you.  I have also taken into account a letter from a District Councillor who I believe is your husband’s cousin, Mr Yu Kar-cheung, and in support of mitigation on your behalf and also a letter from Mr Wan Chi-ming, a supervisor of the Wellness Centre at the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Centre.  I have also read your letter in mitigation that you have written to me as well as a letter written on behalf of your mother-in-law saying that she regrets your attack upon her but asks me to pass a lenient sentence on you. 

11.  Your mother-in-law recognises your mental illness and understands that is the reason why you had chopped her and believes that you had no intention to hurt her.

12.  The reports, as I mentioned, set out in detail the background and most importantly the psychiatric reports by two doctors, Doctor Choy and Doctor Liu, recommend a Hospital Order as a sentence to properly treat your mental illness, namely schizophrenia marked by hallucinatory voices which is, as I understand, considered by Doctor Choy to be a severe and a dangerous one.

13.  You are a housewife, your husband used to be a taxi driver but is now unemployed due to some orthopaedic problems and your family live on CSSA.  Mr Spicer has informed me that in mitigation, you have asked to be sentenced to imprisonment rather than to be sent to the hospital under the Hospital Order.  He has also asked me to take into account your plea of guilty and your remorse for committing this offence. 

14.  Clearly, I must see what is the most appropriate sentence for you and quite frankly I can see that a sentence of imprisonment is not the appropriate sentence for you in view of your mental illness.  Having said that, if it were to be a sentence of imprisonment on just a wounding of this sort with the chopper and used with the injuries that your mother-in-law received, you would be looking at a very very long sentence of imprisonment that would probably be about 3 or more years at least after a plea of guilty but I am not here to consider that because it is more appropriate to deal with you as recommended by the two doctors.

15.  In regard to your mental illness, there is no family history of mental illness, however, you have been suffering from mental illness for about 10 years.  You have been treated continuously for these 10 years, however it appears that at the material time your illness was very strong and therefore you committed this offence.  Doctor Choy, your attending doctor, wrote a report on 10 June 2011 which he attached to the present report on 8 November 2011. 

16.  The June report particularly sets out that you had heard voices telling you that your mother-in-law was lazy for about two weeks and the voices asked you to “chop her, chop her”.  You also felt you could not trust your husband, that he was preoccupied having affairs with neighbours and exaggerated your problems in front of doctors. 

17.  On the day that the incident happened you remember that you did not know why but you remembered that your mother-in-law was lazy while you were preparing dinner and you felt very distressed.  You denied hearing voices at the time but you had a very strong impulse to chop your mother-in-law to death.  You had similar kind of impulses before but your mother-in-law was not living with you at that time.  On this occasion, however, you took out the chopper without much thought and chopped her and you felt as though you were being possessed by others.

18.  After your mother-in-law left, you heard a voice asking you to hang yourself and commit suicide but having seen that your mother-in-law had gone you did not want to die anymore and therefore you stayed at home.  Since being remanded at the centre you have been awake in the middle of the night from terror and you have still heard voices on and off saying “chopping her, chopping her”. 

19.  The doctors have said that you are now suffering from schizophrenia and hospital treatment is necessary given the risks of further symptom-driven violence.  Despite treatment in the centre for almost half a year now, you still need some prolonged period of inpatient treatment and observation.  Your attending doctor in the centre, Doctor Choy Wing-kit, has said that you have not much insight into your illness and that the family and yourself do not have a very good understanding of how your illness may cause danger to yourself and others.  He describes your needing vigorous treatment in a secured setting as in the last half year are still needing much more treatment.  It is therefore important for me, for you and for the family and others that you receive treatment that is going to assist you in getting better. 

20.  The doctors themselves have given different periods of recommendation for your Hospital Order, one is at 4 months and one is between 5 and 6 months.  Mr Spicer has urged me to take the lesser months as they are both in agreement at least to that term.  I have taken into account, of course, the fact that you have pleaded guilty and that you now are at least aware of what you have been doing and I think the proper term should be one of a Hospital Order of 5 months and that will be my sentence.