The victim, Cheng Kong-sang, was apparently asleep when you threw inflammable liquid over him. This was certainly no accident, as the jury has found, and nothing could more obviously have been designed to kill or to cause really serious bodily harm to the victim than setting him on fire. He was left burning, literally, like a torch; so much so that the ceiling tiles melted.
The jury was never shown the photographs taken of the deceased’s body, but you will have seen them and you will know that they are utterly horrifying. The whole of the victim’s front, including his face and the back of his arms and his legs are horribly burned. In fact, as we heard, these burns cover 70 percent of the surface of his body.
Your criminal record reveals that you have spent most of your life, adult life I should say, in either a Drug Addiction Treatment Centre or prisons, so you have wasted your life.
Those, I think it says, 32 convictions on your form, have given you very great experience of the courts and it was a clever story you tried to tell the police about an accident which the jury have seen straight through. The forensic evidence killed your story absolutely dead.
As you know, I was concerned about your mental health before this trial began and I ordered a psychiatric report and I am grateful to Dr Bonnie Siu from the Psychiatric Centre for her very detailed report. It is quite clear you have no mental illness and such psychiatric problems as you have had in the past have all been associated with the various kinds of drugs that you have admitted taking over the years.
What you did in burning your friend to death was one of the most criminal acts of violence imaginable.
There is only one sentence for murder and that is life imprisonment. You will go to prison for life.