He pleads guilty to the count of theft but pleads not guilty to the count of murder. He is convicted of the count of murder by a jury after trial.
Evidence in the Trial
In the morning of 6 December 2018, the body of Mr Lai Kam-fook, who was then 65 years of age, was found inside a red-white-blue nylon bag floating in the Waterfall Bay. He had been killed by his son, Mr Lai Kan-yau, the defendant in this case, on 4 December 2018 and the defendant had then fled to Taiwan. He admitted to killing his father when the police telephoned him at Taiwan. He voluntarily returned to Hong Kong to surrender in the evening of 6 December 2018 and was arrested at the airport.
The defendant made confessions under caution in 3 video-recorded interviews and a re-enactment of the case. In gist, the defendant owed loan shark money and the first repayment of $210,000 was due. The defendant was unable to repay the money and intended to commit suicide.
When he went to see his father for the last time before killing himself, he asked the father for a loan to repay the loan shark. The father did not only refuse him but also insulted him, his wife and his son. The father also hit him. When the defendant gives evidence in court, he says that his father slammed him with a chair at his head repeatedly and also threw things at him. He killed his father with the knife he carried for the purpose of committing suicide. He then used the ATM card of his father to transfer money to the bank account of the loan shark. He also withdrew cash to deposit the money into the same account. A total of $203,000 had been transferred or withdrawn from the account of the father by the defendant.
Alcohol and 2 drugs, namely Zolpidem and Meprobamate, which were respectively used for insomnia and low back pain, were detected in the post-mortem blood of the deceased.
The pathologist found that the fatal wound was at the neck of the deceased which was caused by at least six stabs by a pointed and sharp object at the same location. He found no defensive injuries on the deceased. Basing on such findings, coupled with the presence of alcohol and the 2 drugs in the blood of the deceased, the pathologist is of the view that the deceased was possibly unconscious at the time he was killed. The view is shared by the toxicologist.
The defendant says in evidence that when he went to see his father for the last time before committing suicide, he asked his father for a loan to repay the loan shark. His father slammed his head with a chair repeatedly and threw things at him and insulted him, his wife and his son. At that time, the defendant was married with a son of a few months old.
The defendant took out the knife which he intended to use to commit suicide from his backpack and stabbed his father at his neck several times. He did not intend to kill his father. He then used the ATM card of his father to transfer money and withdraw cash to make payment to the bank account of the loan shark.
He later disposed of the body of his father in Waterfall Bay and then went to Taiwan. He came back to Hong Kong voluntarily after receiving a call from the Hong Kong Police while in Taiwan.
Criminal Record
The defendant has a clear criminal record.
Mitigation
The defendant is aged 29, married with a son. Mr Polson who represents the defendant says in mitigation that the defendant committed the theft under pressure for money to repay the loan shark. Almost all the money taken from the account of the father had been used for this purpose.
Sentence
Judging from the evidence of the case, the court is of no doubt that the defendant killed his father for the purpose of getting his money. This is a real tragedy. The defendant has committed a most abominable and heinous crime in killing his father for a mere sum of slightly more than $200,000.
Although the deceased had not been a good father and had been abusive and violent to the defendant and his mother when the defendant was young, it certainly did not entitle the defendant to brutally kill his father.
The sentence for murder is mandatory life imprisonment, and the court therefore sentences the defendant to life imprisonment for the count of murder.
For the theft count, the pressure of repaying the loan shark the defendant laboured under at the time of the incident is certainly not an excuse to kill his father and to steal the money from him.
In the authority of HKSAR v Zheng Liang Xin, CACC 507/1996, cited by the prosecution, it was said that ransacking a dead person’s body for that person’s possession was a serious matter.
In the present case, searching the wallet of the father to obtain the ATM card to steal money from the father by the defendant was akin to ransacking the dead body of the father.
Having considered the case of HKSAR v Cheung Mee Kiu [2006] 4 HKLRD 776 and the case of Zheng Liang Xin, the court adopts a starting point of 3 years imprisonment for the count of theft. As the defendant only indicated his plea of guilty to the theft count after the case had been committed to High Court, the court is going to give the defendant a discount of 25 per cent in sentence. The court sentences the defendant to 2 years 3 months imprisonment for the count of theft.
The sentences of both counts are to run concurrently.