HKSAR v. Miu Tsui Fun

HCCC123/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 123 OF 2009

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HKSAR

v

MIU TSUI-FUN

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:  Miu Tsui-fun, please stand up.  You have been committed to this court for sentence following your plea of guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to unlawfully and maliciously wounding your husband Leung Yiu-yuen with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

The offence occurred on 11 October last year at the flat you shared with your husband in Shek Kip Mei Estate.  He came home from work at 6 am after completing his work as a night-shift taxi driver.  After going out with you for morning exercise he went to bed at 8 am and fell asleep.  He was not wearing any clothing.  He was woken up at about 11 am by sudden pain on his private parts and thighs.  You were standing by the side of the bed with a pot in your hand, from which you had splashed very hot congee onto his private parts and thighs.  He rushed to the toilet to wash the congee away.  You entered the toilet with a chopper and a fruit knife.  He managed to snatch the chopper from you, and locked himself in the bedroom and made a report to the police.      

He was admitted later to the Department of Surgery at Kwong Wah Hospital, where he was treated as an inpatient for the next three weeks.  He was found to have second degree burns over 8 per cent of his total body area, including his perineum and thighs.  He has described his injuries at that time as extremely painful.  I have no doubt that they were.  He has been followed up at Kwong Wah Hospital since then.  He still has scars on his thighs and private parts.  He still complains of itchiness and pain over the scar area.  This particularly affects him when he is driving.  He is, of course, a taxi driver. 

It appears from the medical report that he may need further surgery.  He is now living with another lady, to whom he says he was only introduced after this incident.  He says that the scarring on his private parts does affect his sexual relationship with her.  He still has not forgiven you for what you did to him. 

This is a very serious offence indeed, but there are mitigating circumstances both in your condition and background, and in the events that led up to the incident.  I am informed that you met your husband in the mid-1980s.  He was even then working as a taxi driver, and you worked for a taxi console firm.  You started a relationship with him but could not get married as he was already married at that time.  At that stage your eyesight was already impaired and had been deteriorating since you were in your 20s.  Unfortunately your condition deteriorated, and in 1995 you became totally blind.  Despite that, you and your husband got married in July 2002 when he was free to do so. 

It appears from what I have read that it was in the following year that your relationship with him began to deteriorate.  You began to suspect that he was having an affair or affairs.  You eventually engaged a private detective, and in 2005 your suspicions were confirmed.  He himself admits that he was having a relationship with a woman on the mainland.  This discovery appears to have progressively poisoned your relationship with your husband, although he claims that his relationship with this mainland woman ended in 2005. 

Whatever the position was, it appears you became very suspicious of him.  Your sexual relationship with him deteriorated, and you started suffering from episodes of depression.  These obsessive depressive episodes resulted in you taking unreasonable and irrational actions against him.  You admitted that in early 2008 you started to lace his coffee with female hormones in an attempt to make him impotent.  Your depressed condition was apparent to others.

In August 2008, when you were in Caritas Medical Centre for a gastrointestinal problem, you appeared so emotional that you were referred to a psychiatrist for assessment.  You were diagnosed to be suffering from depressive episodes.  I am told by your counsel that it was approximately six days before this incident that your husband suggested to you that you separate.  This appears to be because of your quarrels about his affair and your suspicions about other affairs, and his discovery that you had been lacing his drinks.  You told him that he should not leave until you had completed a course organised by the Hong Kong Society for the Blind in November. 

It appears, from what you told the probation officer, that you could not accept that he should leave you.  He was someone who had taken good care of you in the past.  You told the probation officer that you desperately needed his company, as well as his help in view of your disability.  It was in such circumstances and in an emotionally disturbed state that, when cooking some congee, you yielded to the impulse to pour it over him.

The psychiatric report indicates that the recurrent depressive episodes with which you were diagnosed are currently in remission; that inpatient treatment is not necessary at present, but that you should be followed up in an outpatient clinic.

I bear in mind that you are a woman of 58 who has never been in trouble with the law before.  Despite your handicap you worked over the years in a series of occupations in order to support yourself.  I also bear in mind that imprisonment imposes additional hardships on a person who is blind.  If it were not for the mitigating circumstances to which I have referred this court would be bound to sentence you to a very long term of imprisonment.  The mitigating circumstances do enable this court to take a more merciful view of what you did that day. 

Nevertheless, a sentence of imprisonment is inevitable.  It has to be borne in mind that this terrible act was not an immediate response to being told by your husband that he was leaving you.  He told you that six days before.  It also has to be borne in mind that this act was deliberately calculated to cause injury to his private parts, which it did.  Furthermore, I have to bear in mind that your husband experienced what must have been enormous pain as a result of this attack.  He is still suffering from the effects of your attack and is likely to do so for an indefinite period in the future. 

Taking all the circumstances into account, I am satisfied that if you had not pleaded guilty an appropriate sentence in this case would have been one of 3 years’ imprisonment.  You have pleaded guilty and so are entitled to the usual discount of one-third. 

I accordingly sentence you to 2 years’ imprisonment.  I notice that you have been in custody already for 11 months.  Assuming you are entitled to the usual remission for good behaviour, the sentence I have passed will, I assume, enable you to be released in just over 5 months’ time.  I hope in such circumstances your accommodation will still be available to you.