CRIMINAL CASE NO. 147 OF 2009
COURT: The defendant was convicted by a jury of manslaughter by reason of provocation.
The facts the jury must have accepted were that the defendant, a deaf mute, had formed an intermittent sexual relationship with the victim, who was the wife of a good friend of his. Both the victim and her husband were also deaf mutes, and the defendant had met them at their church in Kowloon City, where he was a deacon.
The relationship between the defendant and the victim was a reluctant one so far as the defendant was concerned, because it was the defendant’s case, which was apparently accepted by the jury, that the victim had, on occasion, tricked the defendant into coming to her flat when her husband was absent, and had then prompted the defendant into having sexual intercourse with her.
This had caused the defendant considerable stress, as these events caused him to believe he was endangering his own relationship with his family and was acting against his moral principles.
He eventually, after failing to convince the victim to break off their relationship, decided to kill her. On the day of the offence, the defendant went to the victim’s premises armed with a knife. It was the defence case that he firstly stabbed the victim once and non-lethally in the neck, then felt sympathy for her and decided to assist her by putting a blanket around her, but as he did so, she sprang up, to use the defendant’s words, and put her hands against his chest in a way which he, both in his police interviews and in his evidence, described as an embrace, although in demonstrating the victim’s action in this regard during his evidence, he showed it as an action more closely resembling a push.
At that time, he said, his mind went blank. He was not thinking, and he stabbed the victim repeatedly. In short, the narrow defence case accepted by the jury was that although the defendant had gone to the victim’s premises with the intent to kill, the act of killing was not contiguous with that original cold-blooded intent, but was brought about by a sudden loss of control caused by the victim attempting to touch or embrace him.
In my view, even accepting that specific rationale behind the verdict of the jury, this killing, although reduced to manslaughter by reason of provocation, was nevertheless one of very great gravity. That is because of the pre‑existing intent of the defendant to kill the victim and his carefully thought out preparations to achieve exactly that and to also allow him to later avoid detection.
To put matters simply, if the defendant had not formed the intent to kill the victim, and had not gone to her flat armed with a knife, and had not then stabbed her with a blow which, while not lethal, was serious, the circumstances which shortly afterwards gave rise to his loss of control would not have arisen.
I take into account the defendant's willingness to plead guilty to manslaughter at an early time, the practical difficulties he will have in prison as a deaf mute, and his prior good character. I give him credit also for the mental disorder or personality problem from which he suffers.
But the offence was, in my judgment, a very serious one, and requires condign punishment.
The defendant is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment.