CRIMINAL CASE NO. 386 OF 2011
COURT: The defendant is convicted after trial of one count of manslaughter.
The facts were simple. The deceased, Mr Lau, was a co‑worker of the defendant in a construction site. They had an argument over a small, even trivial, work matter. They came to blows. Their colleagues cut in to intervene, and the two were separated.
A short while later - the defendant said one minute; other witnesses put it a bit longer - the defendant dashed forward from a few metres away to give Mr Lau a punch, or push. As a result, Mr Lau fell and fainted for about 10 seconds.
He was taken to the hospital alert, but later slipped into unconsciousness. Two brain operations did not save him, and he died of head injuries six days later.
The defendant is aged 43. With just a primary education from the mainland, he came to Hong Kong to join his father as a teenager. His subsequent employment was exclusively blue collar in nature.
He had a clear record at the time of the offence, and was living with his wife and two daughters.
Apart from asking me to be as lenient as possible, counsel has very little to say on his behalf in mitigation.
This is a tragic event by any definition. From the start, it is accepted by all that the defendant did not mean to do Mr Lau serious bodily harm, yet a human life was lost, and the defendant, I must say, has shown no remorse in putting up a defence that diametrically contradicted or was contradicted by the clear and consistent accounts of two independent witnesses.
I refer to the majority view in R v Lo Bing Sun CA660/1993, and sentence him to 3 years’ imprisonment.