HKSAR v. CHOY PO LAN

CACC 543/1999

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 543 OF 1999

(ON APPEAL FROM HCCC 126 OF 1997)

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J U D G M E N T

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Stuart-Moore VP (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. On 25 June 1997, the Applicant pleaded guilty in the High Court before Deputy Judge Wilson to a charge of throwing corrosive fluid with intent, contrary to section 29(c) of the Offences Against the Person Ordinance, Cap. 212. Following an adjournment for updated psychiatric reports, on 14 July 1997, the judge made a hospital order under section 45 of the Mental Health Ordinance, Cap. 136, committing the Applicant to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre for an unspecified period.

2. The Applicant, by an affirmation which is dated 25 October 1999, now seeks leave out of time to appeal against this order, stating in effect that because of her mental illness she was unable to appeal at the proper time. She believes that she is now getting better and her application is to have the order limited to a specified period of time. In view of the serious mental state of the Applicant in 1997, it may be that she was unaware of the time limits for lodging an appeal, and so we are disposed to consider the application out of time. This being said, we feel it necessary to say at the same time that there are clearly no merits to the application.

3. The facts reveal that at the time of the offence the Applicant and her daughter were psychiatric out-patients at different hospitals. The Applicant was dissatisfied with her daughter's treatment and her own treatment which was being given at their respective hospitals. On 23 October 1996, the Applicant went to the clinic where her daughter received medication. She went up to the desk in the clinic to make a request to the member of staff who happened to be there that her daughter should no longer be "forced", as she put it, to take medication. Just before going to the hospital, the Applicant had been into a shop where she bought a cleaning liquid which contained concentrated sulphuric acid. In due course, the Applicant became angry with the staff in the hospital. She went to a plastic bag which she had left under a bench. She then opened the bottle of acid which was inside the bag and threw it over the unfortunate victim, who was the male nurse on duty. He was seriously injured with 22% burns to his body. In hospital later, he had to undergo two skin transplant operations.

4. The judge, in passing sentence, had the benefit of a number of psychiatric reports. The latest of these was prepared by Dr C.H. Yuen, the visiting consultant psychiatrist at Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre. In his report dated 8 July 1997, the condition of the Applicant, following his examination on the previous day, is described in the following way:

"I noticed that although Madam Choy has been given drug and psychological treatment, she continues to have no insight. She invariably would become angry whenever the present offence is mentioned. She always says it is extremely unfair for her for having to stay in Siu Lam whereas the one who had been persecuting her daughter for more than 4 years could resume having his job though she had poured corrosive onto him. She knows it to be wrong to throw corrosive onto someone but she has little remorse for having done so. She does not like Siu Lam. She hates taking drugs. She also does not like the doctor who is treating her. She even has the idea that the doctor is persecuting her.

When I examined her on 7 July 1997, she was quite calm initially but immediately became agitated when she talked about the alleged persecution by the male nurse whom she had wounded. She absolutely denied that her daughter has any mental illness. I told her it was the doctors who diagnosed her daughter having mental illness and not the nurse. She said those people were not real doctors. They were at most interns. She said after discharge she would try all the means she could find to stop her daughter from receiving psychiatric treatment. She did not elaborate further as to what she would do. On herself, she denied being mentally ill and stated clearly that she would not attend follow-up after release.

In my opinion, this patient is a dangerous schizophrenic patient. She has not made any improvement despite treatment in the past few months. The fixed delusion that she has is a real danger to anyone whom she considered to be related to her daughter's (and possibly she herself as well) psychiatric treatment. The risk that she would act dangerously again is high, even in restricted environment. She needs to be placed in a secure setting and Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre which is the only suitable place for her. As to the duration of in-patient treatment required, in view of the uncertain prognosis, I would recommend to court to give her an unspecified period Hospital Order sentence and then it would be for the Mental Health Review Tribunal to decide in the future when and under what conditions could she be discharged."

5. Clearly, the order made by the judge was the only order which it was appropriate to make. As the judge said to the Applicant at the time of sentencing, the period of time she spent in hospital would be open to review from time to time, following an assessment of her response to the treatment she was being given. The doctors were not able to be specific about when it would be possible to release the Applicant back into the community, and it was because of this that the judge had no realistic option to the order he made.

6. If it was considered by the doctors that she no longer posed a danger to the community, no doubt she would by now have been released.

7. We are bound to say that this is a sad case and, indeed, it appears she still has no insight into the gravity of her offence, saying to us only today that what she did was not seriously wrong. We do not propose to interfere with the order which has been made.

8. Accordingly, the application is dismissed.