HKSAR v. YUEN KAI NING

DCCC 498/2013

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 498 OF 2013

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Reasons for Sentence

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1. Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to a single offence of wounding with intent, contrary to section 17(a) of the Offences against the Person Ordinance, Cap 212.

2. You admitted the brief facts and I convicted you.

3. What happened is as follows.  PW1, a female, aged 51 is your wife.  You reside together at Flat G, 8th Floor, Yip Ning Building, Shau Kei Wan Road.  You are retired, but your wife has two jobs. 

4. On the night of 21 November of last year, PW1 returned home after a night job.  She usually collected cardboards from restaurants after her night job, but that night she did not.  You accused her of having an affair and since then you quarrelled continuously over this.

5. On 4 April last at about 1500 hours, PW1 returned home after a day job.  You were alone and she could smell alcohol on your breath.  She went to sleep in the living room but after about 20 minutes felt a hard object hit her head.  She woke to find you standing by her holding a 1 foot long hammer with blood on it; that is Exhibit 1.  You then hit her again at the corner of her right eye.  She struggled with you and she took Exhibit 1 from you and ran out to the lift lobby calling for assistance.  The neighbours called the police.  You followed her; you pointed at her and said she deserved it as she was having an affair.  Fortunately, your neighbours separated you.  Police arrived and seized Exhibit 1.

6. PW1 was treated in hospital for two days.  She was found to have the following injuries: a 2-centimetre laceration at the top of her head; a 1.5-centimetre laceration over her right cheek; tenderness over the zygomatic arch with mild swelling; one fracture over the zygomatic arch; and one laceration at her right ring finger.

7. Under arrest and caution and in a sequent video-recorded interview you made the following admission:

(1) that PW1 returned to the premises and went to sleep;

(2) that you knew that PW1 was asleep, you therefore took Exhibit 1 from a basket in the living room and used Exhibit 1 to hit PW1’s head. PW1 seized the hammer and ran out of the premises;

(3) that you hit PW1 because you thought that she was having an affair.

8. In short, you unlawfully and maliciously wounded PW1 intending to do her grievous bodily harm.

9. You are a man of hitherto clear record.

10. In view of your age that being 74, the facts of the case and your clear record, initially I adjourned the case for the preparation of a psychological report and a probation officer’s background report. 

11. The psychological report informed me that you were suffering from chronic alcoholism and delusions of jealousy, that recently and prior to conviction you have been receiving psychiatric treatment and this should continue along with psychological treatment.

12. In view of this new information, I further adjourned the case and asked for two psychiatric reports with a view to the making of a hospital order under the Mental Health Ordinance.

13. The two psychiatric reports I received were supportive of the views of the psychologist but deemed in-patient, psychiatric treatment, was not necessary but out-patient treatment should continue.

14. On your behalf Mr Iu entered mitigation.  He told me that you were in agreement with the contents of all the reports that had been presented to me.  He then went on to deal with your background.  Obviously it was dealt with in the probation officer’s background report.

15. You are a man of 74 years of age, married for 29 years, with a son of 18.  You have been retired since 1996.  The whole family came to live together in Hong Kong in 2008.  Your wife who is 22 years younger than you is the sole breadwinner.  She is an impressively hardworking lady, doing two jobs to maintain the family, 5 am to 3 pm and 6 pm to 1 am.  She earns a total of $17,000 a month. 

16. Turning to the offence, Mr Iu said that you had had problems since November of 2012 when you began to believe that your wife had been unfaithful.  On the day of the offence, that is 4 April of this year, you quarrelled.  You hit PW1 with a hammer while she slept.  This caused her to wake and you hit her again.  She grabbed the hammer and fled from the flat, and the police were called. 

17. Mr Iu submitted that the domestic assault arose out of your morbid jealousy and on an impulse as you were in drink.  After the offence you sought psychiatric help and gave up alcohol.  This was supported by a letter from the psychiatrist.

18. Mr Iu said that your response to treatment was good and positive.  He said that you were extremely remorseful for what you have done.  He produced to me two letters with translations, one from you and one from your wife.  In your letter you expressed your remorse and your wish to rejoin the family.  PW1, for her part, speaks well of you as a husband and parent and articulates her forgiveness for the assault. 

19. Mr Iu reminded me that you are 74 years of age and of a clear record, that you had fully co-operated with the police on arrest making full admissions in your video-recorded interview, also that you had shown an intention to plead guilty from the very outset, thus demonstrating your remorse.  He said whilst it could not be said that PW1’s injuries were minor, he did submit that they were not permanent.  Mr Wong for prosecution, very fairly accepted this.

20. Mr Iu concluded by asking me to be as lenient as possible and to give you a chance.

21. I turn now to the sentence.  The courts of Hong Kong will not tolerate domestic violence of any kind.  There are some aggravating features in this case.  The principal aggravating feature, in my opinion, is the use of a weapon; that is a hammer.  It is self-evident that a hammer is capable of causing very severe injury or even death.  It is also an aggravating feature that you hit your wife not once but twice.  I do note, however, that she was able to disarm you fairly easily.  It is also, in my opinion, a matter of aggravation that it was the head upon which she was struck and this was at the time when she was asleep and defenceless.

22. There are points of mitigation and I shall go through those.  First of all, we have the fact that you are a man of 74 years of age, of a clear record and also that you are suffering from mental problems.  It has been well established that you do suffer from acute alcoholism and morbid jealousy.  It is to your credit that after this incident you had the good sense to abstain from alcohol and seek psychiatric assistance. 

23. I also accept that you were co-operative from the outset and making full admissions in your video-recorded interview, that you have indicated a willingness to plead guilty and admit what you have done from the outset.  It is also of some mitigation that your wife is willing to forgive you for what you have done and that she speaks well of you as a husband and father. 

24. I have to say that it is purely fortuitous that the injuries suffered by your wife were not as serious as they might have been, nor is she rendered permanently disabled by what you did.  Having said that, I note that I have to say this was a serious incident of an unprovoked domestic attack.  It is clear to me that you had absolutely no grounds whatsoever to suspect your wife had been unfaithful, and even if you had, it does not give you the right to assault her and to assault her with such a deadly weapon as a hammer. 

25. As I have said before, the courts will not tolerate this sort of behaviour, this level of domestic violence.  I have to take into account the contents of all the reports and all the facts in this case.  I therefore take as a starting point 27 months’ imprisonment.  That will be reduced to 18 months for your plea of guilty.  However, given your age and the forgiveness that your wife so magnanimously extends to you, I will make a small reduction and therefore I reduce the sentence by a further 2 months.  You will go to prison for 16 months.

26. There will be a recommendation to the prison that you will receive psychiatric and psychological treatment while serving your sentence.