An elderly Hong Kong man has been jailed for four years and eight months for strangling his daughter to death three years ago after being provoked into committing the act.
The High Court on Wednesday sentenced security guard Chan Kwai-sang to a term close to the period he had spent in custody, allowing for his early release.
The defendant will be eligible for early release on grounds of his industry and good conduct during his three years and five months in custody, but subject to the prison service’s discretion and a legal provision that requires the defendant to spend an additional 31 days behind bars.
Earlier this year, a seven-member jury cleared the 74-year-old of murdering his daughter, Chan Hang-sze, but convicted him of the lesser charge of manslaughter on the basis of her provocation.
The trial heard the defendant had frequent quarrels with his 32-year-old daughter and ex-wife over trivial matters when they lived together in a flat in Mong Kok’s Hoi Fu Court in the lead-up to the killing on March 7, 2022.
The defendant said his jobless daughter, who had autism and bipolar disorder, had prevented him from going to the toilet in the early hours that day, forcing him to urinate in the kitchen instead.
The deceased later woke her father and repeatedly blamed him for not flushing the toilet and putting his slippers in the incorrect place. The father claimed he was scolded for nearly two hours, during which his daughter also hit him with an umbrella eight to 10 times.
The defendant said he strangled his daughter in her sleep before daybreak after thinking things over for an hour.
After his arrest, he apologised to police and said he could no longer bear the stress of living with his daughter.
In a subsequent interview, he said he first thought about killing his daughter two years earlier, adding the altercation on March 7 was “the final straw”.
Dr Paul Tam Mo-shing, a psychiatrist who testified as an expert witness, assessed that the accused had been suffering from a moderate level of adjustment disorder, which was likely caused by a combination of his introverted personality, the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the prolonged physical and verbal abuse by his daughter.
Tam noted the pandemic had forced the defendant to spend more time together with his daughter, increasing the risk of family conflicts.
A presentencing psychiatric assessment concluded that Chan was fit to receive outpatient psychiatric treatment and that a hospital order was unnecessary.
Madam Justice Amanda Woodcock said on Wednesday that the defendant’s reaction to the prolonged provocation was “not out of proportion” to the degree of the provocation involved.
She said the case was a tragedy for everyone involved and noted the accused would have to bear the guilt of killing his daughter for the rest of his life.
“Although the court is under a duty to impose a punishment for unlawfully taking a life that is appropriate to the circumstances, this is one of those cases where I can temper justice with mercy,” the judge added.
The court started sentence at seven years’ imprisonment and knocked off one-third of the term to reflect Chan’s guilty plea to the lesser charge before the trial.
The defendant is expected to complete his sentence shortly having been detained since the killing.
Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, as opposed to manslaughter, for which defendants can usually avoid a lifetime behind bars. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
