Li Sin-heng after a trial by jury on 8 December 2020.
Ms Li, who was referred to by her nickname Annie, was just 20 years old on 16 September 2017 when you stabbed her to death. We saw the attack as it was captured on a video camera situated on the top deck of the bus that you were both travelling in at the time.
She received 33 stab wounds to her neck, chest, back and upper limbs, some of which were large and which the pathologist described as gaping. Her thoracic cavity was punctured 11 times with such force that they went through her lungs and through her heart and fractured the ribcage in two different places where it joined her spine. The depth of one of the wounds was 14 centimetres. One wound almost completely cut her trachea away from her lung and the stab wounds to her heart meant she bled out very quickly. There was very little blood left in her heart when she was autopsied. How did this happen?
You had met Annie in July 2016 over the internet and at that time, you were still at university but in the final year of your civil engineering degree whilst Annie was completing an associate degree course which led her to being enrolled in the School of Nursing of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This was where you also studied. Your relationship appears to have gone well until March 2017 but it was clear you were very possessive and jealous of Annie’s relationship with others, especially any relationship with men. This manifested itself in the fact that you wanted to know her whereabouts at all times and you began to check up on her using social media and following her without her knowledge.
By March 2017, she was becoming increasingly frustrated by your actions but you reconciled. It was a volatile, unstable relationship and you told the jury you had feelings of inferiority where she was concerned.
There were times when Annie had suggested breaking up with you. To which you responded by threatening to kill yourself, except that you admitted to the jury that these were just threats and that you had no intention of carrying them out. It was just a way of manipulating your girlfriend so that she would not break up with you.
By the beginning of September 2017, it appeared that the relationship had stabilised somewhat and you even went to meet Annie’s parents for the first time, which appeared to have gone well. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long as you and Annie had another fight after that event and Annie had raised the issue of breaking up once more. Indeed, it would appear that she had actually broken up with you because on 14 September, you had found out that Annie had signed up for the university O Camp, which you had told her not to do.
That led to a row which lasted over three days and in which she had asked for intimate photographs back from you. It is clear she suspected that you might upload those photographs onto the internet in order to seek revenge against her. She had even considered going to the police. You eventually gave her what she wanted and you had promised her that all of those photographs or videos you had had been given back to her, but we now know you kept copies.
By this stage, the relationship had clearly broken down completely. You tried to suggest to the jury that you had reconciled but that was not the case.
When you met up on 15 September, you had to take recordings of the conversations you had with her at dinner and by 16 September, things were no better. Annie was still considering reporting you to the police and you were trying to persuade her otherwise.
At 1 pm that day, you got up late and you decided you would meet up with Annie. This wasn’t a planned meeting. Annie was going to work. She was not expecting you when you came up behind her on that bus. She had asked you not to come when you texted her. When you left home to go to meet Annie, you took with you a backpack. It contained your clothes and a passport. Before finding Annie, having taken a taxi there, you decided to go into the shopping mall above her home. You made your way up the escalators to the Japan Home store and inside it you purchased a large kitchen knife. It was 20 centimetres by 4.5 centimetres and it was in a sealed plastic container. You told the court you had no memory of this at all.
By the time you reached Annie at the bus stop below the mall, however, you had taken it out of its plastic container and it was loose in your backpack. It was a premeditated act. It was in this position that you could fluidly take it out of the backpack in order to stab her. We saw that on the video. It must have been very carefully positioned.
You both went to the upper deck of the bus. Passengers noticed you both sitting together and talking. That too, we could see on the video. What we could not see was why you suddenly took out a knife and stabbed Annie, but you did, not once but over 30 times with considerable force.
You are now 26 years of age. You were 22 at the time of the offence with a clear record and you just started work that summer after completing your civil engineering degree. You come from a loving and hardworking family and I have read the letters and heard what Mr Percy says and I know that there are others who actually think highly of you. Mr Percy has suggested in his written submissions that you would benefit from counselling in the future and that hopefully you will eventually secure your release.
There were a number of experts and their reports before the jury during the trial. The most helpful of which was from Dr Liu who had been supervising psychiatrist in Siu Lam from very early after these events until the date of the trial. She is an experienced and well-respected psychiatrist. It was her opinion that you did not suffer from any formal psychiatric illness and in her opinion, you no longer needed to be detained in Siu Lam and as a result you went into the general prison population.
Other reports variously suggested you might have suffered from a mild form of OCD, morbid jealousy, depression and paranoid personality disorder or borderline personality disorder. None of those opinions were consistent as with each other and Dr Liu did not agree with them and she explained at length why that was the case. The jury agreed with her. You did not suffer from any abnormality of mind which diminished your culpability and responsibility for this murder.
These events have been traumatic. Not just for the family, sadly, of Ms Li, but understandably for you too and for your family and friends. I have no doubt you would benefit from counselling whilst you are in prison but this court must emphasise that you suffered from no serious mental disorder at the time of this offending. You do not require psychiatric treatment.
You may very well benefit from counselling from what has occurred but whether it would be safe to release you into the community in the future is a matter of question. Whilst you are clearly remorseful and the court of course accepts that and you have a good nature in other circumstances, there is no explanation for what you did that day.
You are a significant risk to the community and there is, as you know, only one sentence that this court can pass upon you for the offence of murder and that is, Mr Ng, life imprisonment.