CRIMINAL CASE NO. 329 OF 2009
Upon arraignment, he pleaded not guilty to Count 1 but guilty to manslaughter. It has been indicated to me through his counsel that that plea is on the basis of diminished responsibility. He pleaded not guilty to Count 2 but guilty to the alternative Count 3. The prosecution indicate that those pleas are acceptable in satisfaction of the indictment.
As I have indicated, the plea of guilty to manslaughter is made pursuant to section 3(1) of the Homicide Ordinance, Cap. 339; that is a plea of guilty based on the premise that the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mind as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts in regard to Count 1. This is otherwise normally described as a person suffering from diminished responsibility.
Having considered a number of psychiatric reports tendered on behalf of the defendant and the prosecution, I was satisfied that it was appropriate to accept the pleas. The defendant is accordingly convicted of manslaughter and the section 17 wounding charge.
The Summary of Facts
Yu Kwok-cheong, his wife and son aged 4, lived on the 3rd Floor, at No. 280 Tung Chau Street in Sham Shui Po. Their son was the victim of Count 1 and Mr Yu was the victim of Count 3. The defendant lived in the same building but they were not known to one another formally.
On 29 May 2009, about midday, Mr Yu took his son downstairs to the open space outside the Tung Chau Street Temporary Market. For no apparent reason, the defendant first attacked the son with a large chopper, striking him on the head. As the defendant continued to rain down blows on the young boy’s head, Mr Yu attempted to rescue his son. He was also chopped by the defendant. He attempted to run away with his son but to no avail.
Subsequently, Mr Yu and the defendant struggled. They fell to the ground. The defendant got up first and returned to attacking the young boy. Eventually, Mr Yu managed to subdue the defendant. Police had been called by onlookers. As Mr Yu attempted to explain to the police officer what had happened, the defendant was heard to shout loudly, “I have mental illness”. The defendant was arrested.
The young boy and Mr Yu were taken by ambulance to the Princess Margaret Hospital. The young boy was certified dead shortly after his arrival. He had suffered multiple wounds to the head, the extent of which were such that the underlying brain tissue was exposed. According to the Government Pathologist, Dr Chiao, there were at least six cut wounds to the young boy’s head, four of which were accompanied by extensive soft tissue damage, skull fracture and brain damage.
Mr Yu, the father, was treated for multiple chop wounds to the scalp and to his hands. He was admitted to hospital that day and was not discharged until 12 July 2009. During his hospitalisation, he had several operations to repair the injuries to his hands.
The defendant was taken to the Caritas Medical Centre for treatment of minor abrasions. As he was being taken there, he said to the accompanying police officer, “Ah Sir, I have mental illness. I suddenly wanted to chop people, therefore I took the knife from the kitchen at home and went down to the street to chop people”. The defendant was subsequently transferred to the Castle Peak Hospital for observation.
On 30 May 2009, he was interviewed by police officers. The interview was recorded.
Under caution, the defendant said, amongst other things, that he had no specific purpose to kill the boy. “He had mental illness for many years. He had been treated in Princess Margaret Hospital and in a hospital in China.
At the scene, he saw the boy and he used the chopper to chop him because he, the defendant, had mental illness.” “ He did not know the boy or the father. He was subdued by the father. After that, the police arrived.” He took the chopper from the kitchen in his home and went down to the street to chop people. He placed the chopper underneath the waistband of his trousers.
He chopped the boy because he regarded the boy as an easy target. He did not have a specific target; any little boy would be fine. He chopped the boy’s neck first and then the head.
The boy had shouted for help once but, after two more chops, the boy did not shout. The boy was together with his father at that time when he was chopping the boy. The father stopped him and beat him and then he chopped the father as well.
The police arrived and he was then taken to the hospital. He repeated that he did not know the father or the boy; he killed simply because he had mental illness.
The defendant was admitted to the Kwai Chung Hospital from 14 May 2004 to 17 January 2006 for treatment of his mental illness, namely, schizophrenia. He was then put on outpatient follow-up treatment in the West Kowloon Psychiatric Centre at the Princess Margaret Hospital.
There are, before me, four psychiatric reports that have been prepared. They are the reports of Dr Peter W T Yu, Dr Chan Kwok-tung, Dr Amy C Y Liu and Dr W K Choi. Their conclusions are essentially the same. Dr Yu said this:
“Mr Leung’s mental condition deteriorated gradually in the months preceding the offence. Such deterioration is very likely due to exacerbation of delusions and/or hallucinations. At the time of the offences, it is highly probable that his reasoning was under the influence of auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions. He acted according to the false beliefs that other people were going to harm him. He failed to resist the command of the hallucinatory voices.”
In his opinion, Mr Leung was suffering from an abnormality of mind induced by disease which is schizophrenia. The abnormality of mind had led to substantial impairment of his mental responsibilities.
Dr Chan Kwok-tung was of a similar opinion. He said this:
“Mr Leung is a known schizophrenic patient. The onset can be dated back to more than 15 years ago. The formal documentation of his mental illness was in May of 2004, when he was admitted to Kwai Chung Hospital after his second attempt of violence to people on the street, under psychotic influence.”
“Schizophrenia,” he said -
“...is a psychotic disorder. It is well known to be a heterogeneous group of mental illness with different clinical cause and prognosis. However, the schizophrenia disorders are characterised in general by fundamental and characteristic distortion of thinking and perception. Clear consciousness and intellectual capacity are usually maintained but certain cognitive deficits may evolve in the course of time.”
He said also this:
“According to the International Classification of Disease 10th edition, the diagnosis for Mr Leung can be further specified to the sub-category called residual schizophrenia. This is a chronic stage in the development of a schizophrenic illness in which there has been a clear progression from an early stage to a later stage, characterised by long-term negative symptoms. In Mr Leung’s case, the negative symptoms being noticed included blunting of effect, quality or content of speech, lack of non-verbal communication by facial expression, eye contact, voice modulation, poor posture and inappropriate social performance.”
Dr Chan said this, under the heading ‘Risk of Re-Offending’:
“In the face of the repeated violent acts under the psychotic influences in the past and the cognitive function impairment which resulting in poor self-care and control, the risk of re-offending in the future is considerably high, especially if the psychiatric treatment becomes inadequate.”
He said this:
“He was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time of the indexed offences. When he is looking at the events retrospectively, he is able to judge what he had done was not right. He feels remorseful. However, at the time of the offences, his mind was overpowered by vivid auditory hallucinations and delusional beliefs such that his mind was unable to exercise the rational judgment and he was unable to control his physical acts. The abnormality of mind resulting from his chronic schizophrenic illness has substantially impaired his mental responsibilities for his physical acts at the time of the indexed offences.”
Dr Amy C Y Liu, a visiting psychiatrist at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, said as follows:
“Leung was admitted to the Kwai Chung Hospital in the period 14 May 2004 to 17 January 2008. It was documented that despite being new to the Mental Health Services in Hong Kong, he had a known history of mental illness in China for six to seven years. Before admission to Kwai Chung Hospital, he presented with insomnia, self-muttering, persecutory delusions and hitting strangers in public, and finally got admitted to mental hospital in China for four days. After being discharged in China, he came to Hong Kong and hit strangers in the street again for feeling being persecuted. He is diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.”
As to the present circumstances of the defendant, she said this:
“Leung has been mentally ill for a long period of time and the onset of illness likely dated back to around late 1990s. His mental condition apparently improved for a period of time after admission to Kwai Chung Hospital, in the period 2004 to 2006. However, his mental state appeared to deteriorate about one year ago, one year before these offences.”
According to the defendant, he had told her that the hallucinations never truly remitted for many years before the offences and whilst he had previously been able to control them, he failed to do so on this occasion. She said this:
“All of the information suggests Leung has been suffering from a longstanding psychotic disorder, namely paranoid schizophrenia, for a long period of time. This illness ran a fluctuating course and ended in a relapse in the one year before the offence. At the material time, Leung reported hearing non-existent voices and having delusions of being harmed and referred to.”
In her opinion, the defendant’s acts at the material time were influenced significantly by the psychotic disorder, that is, the paranoid schizophrenia. She determined that he is suffering from an abnormality of mind which substantially impairs his mental responsibility for his acts. She further observed that, in her opinion, he should be subject to a Hospital Order pursuant to the provisions of the Mental Health Ordinance for an unspecified period. There are facilities for him to serve this at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre.
The opinion of Dr W K Choi was very much the same. He said this:
“Given his persistent psychotic symptoms, high level of distress, poor social support and the high risk of violence that is directly related to his symptoms, he should be continuously detained in a highly supervised therapeutic environment for further psychiatric observation and treatment, and there is no telling that when he could be safely discharged back to the community.”
Like Dr Amy Liu, he recommended that a Hospital Order be made pursuant to section 45 of the Mental Health Ordinance for an unspecified period of time. There are facilities available for him to serve this at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre.
There is no doubt in my mind that the appropriate course for me is to order that the defendant be subject to a Hospital Order, the period of the Hospital Order will be unspecified, and that the nominated institution is the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre.
This is a case, a tragedy of most significant levels, tragedy both for the victim’s family but also the defendant himself. It is apparent that whilst his paranoid schizophrenia has previously been diagnosed, insufficient attention has been given to it and, as a consequence, he has been at large in the community with the potential to commit the acts which he did eventually commit.
It is very difficult in the circumstances to suggest a course of action which would have prevented this. It is apparent that whilst the defendant was originally discharged from the Kwai Chung Hospital, having been treated for his paranoid schizophrenia and that admission being the consequences of violence on his part, he himself did not follow up on, undoubtedly, the treatment that was offered to him.
The failure on his part to do that is directly referable to the circumstances that prevailed when this young child and his father were injured. Had the defendant pursued the treatment that was available to him, it is possible that this tragedy could have been avoided. Nevertheless, that is the situation.
I will make the orders that I have indicated and I will make an order in terms disposing of the exhibits.