On 17 May 2019, when Madam Cheung was sitting at the Hang Mei Tsuen Light Rail Transit Station waiting for the train to go to work, the defendant suddenly appeared and punched her head several times that caused a 1-centimetre abrasion on her face. The defendant told Madam Cheung that he purposefully waited for her at the platform as their daughter scolded him the night before. The defendant accused Madam Cheung of not knowing how to teach the daughter and that she should not have a boyfriend. Madam Cheung reported to the police and the defendant was arrested. This is the 1st charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
On 13 June 2019, at around 10 o’clock in the morning, Madam Cheung returned to the salon where she worked in Tin Shui Wai, Kingswood Richly Plaza. The defendant appeared with a blue plastic bottle in his hand and without saying anything opened the bottle and threw the liquid onto Madam Cheung’s face and body. Madam Cheung immediately ran to the opposite shop to get water to rinse off the fluid but the defendant chased after her and continued throwing the corrosive fluid onto her and in the course of that, Madam Cheung bumped into Mr Tsang who was the victim for Charge 3. The defendant pulled the clothes of Madam Cheung at her rear neck area and threw the fluid directly onto Madam Cheung’s body. The fluid splashed onto the left elbow and left leg of Mr Tsang.
Madam Cheung went inside the salon opposite to her shop but the defendant followed her, continued throwing the fluid on her. Madam Cheung took off her upper garment to rinse her body but the defendant continued to chase after her. Madam Cheung tried to escape from the defendant but unfortunately she fell on the ground and the defendant then pressed over her body and threw the fluid onto her head, face and body. Sometime later, the defendant stopped and went out of the shop. Madam Cheung then used water to rinse her body. The police later arrived. The defendant admitted to the police that he had prepared the drainage water and brought it to throw at Madam Cheung.
As can be seen by the above summary of what happened it is not hard to imagine the injuries suffered by Madam Cheung must be extremely serious and the traumatic effect on her psychologically must be huge. Madam Cheung was admitted to the Prince of Wales Hospital and she was found to have suffered from 28 per cent full thickness burns involving eye, head, neck, trunk, hand and lower limb. Multiple surgeries with debridement and dermal substitute with skin grafts were performed on 19 June, 24 June, 3 July, 8 July, 24 July, 2 August and 27 September 2019. She was discharged from the hospital on 8 October 2019 and needed to be followed up by the Burns Clinic. She was found to have worsening cicatricial ectropion which was surgically corrected on 24 April 2020.
According to the report of the Occupational Therapy Department of Tuen Mun Hospital following an assessment on 14 October 2019, Madam Cheung had scars over her head, neck, trunk, bilateral upper limb and thighs. The scars were red in colour, flat to raised-up in height for 1 to 2 millimetres. As can be seen from a table on the report comparing the condition of the scars of Madam Cheung on 14 October 2019 and 3 July 2020, there has been actually little or no improvement of the scars.
Psychologically, the impact report of Madam Cheung shows that she has been suffering from significant physical and emotional distress since the incident. Many aspects of her life have been adversely affected, including losing functional independence and financial stability and feeling ashamed in her social and romantic relationships. It is the opinion of the clinical psychologist that the emotional distress of Madam Cheung is going to continue for a long period of time and the need for psychotherapy intervention is apparent.
I have called for a background report of the defendant for consideration of sentence. The defendant’s background largely accords with what was given in the written mitigation submitted by Miss Ma, counsel for the defendant. The defendant is now 71 years old. He met Madam Cheung about 27 years ago in Shenzhen. Madam Cheung is 20 years younger than the defendant. They got married in mainland China. They had a daughter and a son and initially the children were living together with Madam Cheung in the mainland.
At that time, the defendant was running a business on fitting outworks together with his three brothers in Hong Kong. Madam Cheung and the children moved to Hong Kong in mid-1990s and the family resided together in a village house in Fanling. The defendant later purchased a flat under the Home Ownership Scheme in Tin Shui Wai. However, there was a downturn of the defendant’s business and the defendant eventually went into bankruptcy. The flat was sold and the family moved to a public housing unit in early year 2000. Madam Cheung managed to continue running a hair salon in Tin Shui Wai.
The defendant and Madam Cheung divorced in 2009 but continued living together after the divorce. According to the defendant, they decided to divorce only for the purpose of applying for comprehensive social security assistance.
The defendant said he was all along in good marital relationship with Madam Cheung but he had a lot of hard feelings on her. The defendant maintained that Madam Cheung at one time had an extramarital relationship with a medical doctor which hurt him so much.
Miss Ma submitted that the drastic drop of the living standard of the family had brought to the downfall of the defendant’s marriage. Madam Cheung became indifferent, cool, discouraging and unsympathetic to the defendant. She despised the defendant for his poverty and old age. Miss Ma submitted that, according to the defendant, Madam Cheung had been very sarcastic towards the defendant and even taught the children to grow to hate the defendant.
Sometime on 13 or 14 May 2019, for no reason the daughter returned home and started scolding at the defendant, abusing him for being old, incompetent, useless and hopeless. The defendant formed the view that the daughter must have been brainwashed by Madam Cheung and he found it totally unacceptable and he was enraged. He wanted to teach Madam Cheung a lesson and therefore he committed Charge 1.
After the defendant assaulted Madam Cheung, she moved out without giving any prior notice to the defendant.
On 12 June 2019, the day before the defendant committed Charges 2 and 3, Madam Cheung called the defendant and said she had just started a relationship with another man. She also uttered nasty remarks to the defendant, boasting that she had so many young and affluent men chasing after her. At that time, the defendant felt a strong sense of betrayal by Madam Cheung and he was utterly devastated. Worse still, his son also called him and scolded him for no reason.
Miss Ma submitted that the defendant had become desperate. He decided to take up a drainage cleaner from home and go to Madam Cheung’s workplace to seek revenge on her then commit suicide to end his own life. In fact, the defendant had told the probation officer that he intended to kill Madam Cheung then commit suicide.
In mitigation, Miss Ma asked this court to consider the defendant’s distress by his circumstances and that he has been provoked before he committed the offence. The defendant was driven to commit the present offences, not by greed or reward but simply blinded by irate jealousy out of personal and domestic conflicts with Madam Cheung. Miss Ma submitted that the defendant is now very remorseful and she, on behalf of the defendant, apologises to Madam Cheung for what he did in open court.
According to the probation officer, the defendant now realises how wrong he was and he deeply regretted what he did to Madam Cheung and he have found his way to Jesus during his remand.
The defendant had committed a very serious of crime. The degree of violence afflicted on Madam Cheung was to the extreme and it caused very serious injuries both physically and psychologically to Madam Cheung. What the defendant did ruined Madam Cheung’s life. No matter what the defendant had come across and no matter what the defendant felt before he committed the offence cannot justify to a slightest degree the cold-blooded attack on Madam Cheung.
What had happened to the defendant was unfortunate and I accept that it would be hard for the defendant to have gone through this. However, this can hardly be a significant mitigating factor in consideration of the appropriate sentence for a crime of this gravity.
There is no guideline laid down by the Court of Appeal in these kinds of offences. For the present case, the way the defendant committed the offence is of utmost severity. It was not a single throwing of corrosive fluid. After successfully throwing the fluid to Madam Cheung, the defendant continued chasing after her in order to further harm her. He even pulled away her clothes to throw fluid directly onto her skin. He pressed over her on the ground to throw fluid onto her whole body. He did not allow her to rinse away the fluid. This is definitely one of the most serious case of its kind.
I have considered the Court of Appeal case HKSAR v Sin Wa Chiu submitted by Miss Ma, where the starting point adopted by the court was 18 years’ imprisonment to a defendant who was 71 years old for throwing corrosive fluid to his ex-wife. I am of the view that the present case is even more serious than Sin Wa Chiu on its facts.
In my view, the proper starting point in the present case for Charge 2 should be 20 years’ imprisonment. Taking into account the defendant’s guilty plea, the sentence be reduced to 13 years and 4 months. The defendant has committed no criminal offence throughout his life and considering his distress before committing the offence and his old age, the sentence is further reduced to 12 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. For Charge 1, the defendant is sentenced to 1 year’s imprisonment and for Charge 3, the defendant is sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment and all sentences be served concurrently.