The Queen v. Wong Lai Ngo

CACC000067/1984

[Sentence: manslaughter of own child]

BETWEEN:

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Coram: Li, Silke, JJ.A. & Garcia, J.

Date: 17 April 1984

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JUDGMENT

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Silke, J.A.:

1. This is an application for leave to appeal against a sentence of four years' imprisonment.

2. The applicant was indicted for the offence of murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter - a plea which the Crown was prepared to accept and which the trial judge also, with some misgiving, did accept.

3. She had been charged with causing the death of her own child on the 23rd June 1983 - the child being at that time two years and nine months of age.

4. It would seem that the child was a naughty child, as children tend to be on occasions, and on the 23rd June. she had been left in her crib at home while the applicant went downstairs to collect the other child of the family, who is a 4 1/2 year old boy. The applicant had a meal at a restaurant with the boy, brought some food and returned home. She put the boy to bed, took the deceased out of the crib and gave her some food and told her to eat it. The applicant herself went to lie down for a short while.

5. When she arose she found that the child, the young girl, had eaten nothing and she scolded her. The child still refused to eat. She then hit her several times with her hand and placed the child on the floor and struck her with a bamboo stick. The child refused to get up off the floor and it was some time about then that the applicant stamped twice with her foot upon the child's chest.

6. There was in the depositions, and quite properly looked at by the trial judge prior to his accepting the plea, a pathologist's report and this indicated a beating of considerable duration and extent having been administered to the child. There were something in the region of forty bruises situated on her face, arms, body and her legs. There was deep bruising on her left temple. The actual cause of death was a rupture of the aorta and this was caused by the stamping upon the chest.

7. Before passing sentence, the trial judge procured both a psychiatric report and a background report from Social Welfare.

8. Miss Chua, who appears on behalf of the applicant before us, has drawn our attention to the contents of both of these reports and, in particular, that portion of the psychiatric report which states:

"She (the applicant) then failed to anticipate that the blows could be fatal. Apart from the irritative behaviour of the deceased, she attributed her outrageous acts to a combination of the hot weather, her unstable mood ever since she received the postpartum sterilisation and the premenstrual tension state."

The psychiatrist concluded that no psychiatric intervention was presently indicated.

9. Miss Chua submitted to us that this was an act done in a burst of temper and that the applicant herself had had an unhappy childhood which affected her actions. Her mother died when she was aged nine and she had received a very strict upbringing with corporal punishment being administered in the course of the discipline to which she was subject.

10. Further: she had married in 1977, the boy was born and then the deceased. After the birth of the deceased she had been sterilised and this altered her temper and personality for the worse.

11. She had had difficulties as regards the accommodation in which she lived. The couple lived after marriage with the applicant's father. As a married couple they wanted some grade of privacy so they moved to a squatter hut. That hut was destroyed by fire. They moved back to the father's and then later into a temporary housing area.

12. We have been told that the husband stands by his wife. It was said in the Court below that he had remonstrated with her in respect of the strict discipline she was enforcing upon the children.

13. We have been addressed at some length on the effect of premenstrual tension. We accept that such symptom does exist. We are not, however, here possessed of full knowledge of the degree to which it affected this applicant. There was merely a passing reference to it in the psychiatrist's report.

14. This was not a case of a blow indirectly causing death, in the sense of a blow being struck and the child falling against something and injuring herself. The actual blows which caused death here were direct blows to the body of a two year and nine month old child and followed upon earlier beatings.

15. Kilner Brown, J. said in Boswell⁽¹⁾:

"It is always said in cases like this that the parents, or the one parent, never intended to do it. Of course not. This Court recognises that. But where one has a helpless child, only a few weeks' old, the only protection which can be given to such a helpless infant is that the law steps in and makes it quite plain that such cases like this have to be met with severe sentences."

16. A child of the age of the deceased here is just as helpless.

17. We were also referred to authorities in this jurisdiction in particular LI Wang-fat⁽²⁾ where this Court, ad misericordiam, reduced a sentence of five years to one of three where both parents were in custody and there were other children who had to be looked after.

18. There is great sympathy with the parties concerned in cases as tragic as this but as the trial judge said:

"I have to balance as best I can the interests of 'the community and the feelings of the community which are entitled to much consideration, with the position of the accused."

Children are entitled to be protected. While any sentence on a mother of this age in relation to the death of her own child is severe we cannot say that the sentence imposed here is either wrong in principle in the circumstances of this case or manifestly excessive. Miss Chua had said everything that could be said on behalf of the applicant.

19. The application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.

Representation:

Miss Fi-Lan Chua assigned by D.L.A. for applicant.

F. Wong, Esq. for Crown/Respondent.

(1) [1982] 4 Cr. App. R. 317

(2) [1982] H.K.L.R. 133