A former university professor whose conviction for murdering his wife was overturned has been sentenced to seven years and four months in prison for the lesser offence of manslaughter, after a Hong Kong court accepted that his depression was so severe that it reduced his criminal culpability.
Cheung Kie-chung pleaded guilty at the High Court on Tuesday after prosecutors accepted that his mental impairment had substantially diminished his responsibility for the killing that shocked academia in 2018.
The 61-year-old defendant, who has been detained for seven years and two months, is believed to be eligible for release soon, subject to the prison service’s discretion.
Dressed in formal attire, the former professor was seen smiling and waving to dozens of relatives and friends in the court’s public gallery before and after the hour-long session.
Cheung had admitted to strangling his 53-year-old wife at their residence at the Wei Lun Hall of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where he served as warden, on August 17 that year.
He also confessed to covering up Tina Chan Wai-man’s death by lying to his family and the authorities, making a false missing person report and concealing the body in a handmade wooden box until his arrest 11 days later.
Lawyers for the former associate professor of HKU’s department of mechanical engineering argued that his depression was so severe that it significantly impaired his ability to make rational judgments when he killed the mother of his two children.
Prosecutors originally rejected that contention, resulting in a gripping 11-day trial that ended with a jury finding the defendant guilty of murder and the court sentencing him to mandatory life imprisonment.
The Court of Appeal overturned that ruling last year on the grounds that the trial judge, at the defence’s behest, mistakenly asked the jury to disregard psychological evidence in support of Cheung’s argument that he was suffering from an abnormality of the mind at the time of the offence.
Prosecutors accepted the defendant’s renewed offer to plead guilty to manslaughter after considering existing evidence and the appellate court’s judgment.
Cheung initially stood accused of murdering Chan in cold blood for financial reasons.
In the first trial in November 2020, prosecutors cited an IOU note involving HK$6.7 million (US$860,000) and a bounced cheque of HK$4 million as evidence that the accused intended to kill his wife to avoid giving her money after having difficulties repaying his mortgage loans.
The revised prosecution case highlighted psychiatric and psychological findings that weighed in the defendant’s favour.
Two psychiatrists, including one sought by the prosecution, supported Cheung’s defence of diminished responsibility and identified work-related stress and his interactions with his spouse as reasons for his depression.
A clinical psychologist, whose opinion was wrongly discarded in the first trial, characterised Cheung as a victim of chronic psychological abuse by his wife, who had regularly insulted him, attacked his personality, humiliated and belittled him in front of their family and relatives.
In Tuesday’s hearing, defence lawyer Derek Chan Ching-lung SC urged the court to consider that his client had accepted responsibility for the killing before the start of the first trial.
He said Cheung, despite the enormous stress he had endured over a prolonged period, had never complained about his wife or mistreated her before the offence.
“This was not a premeditated killing ... The defendant’s psychiatric condition was through no fault of his own,” the lawyer said.
Mrs Justice Judianna Barnes agreed that Cheung’s act was out of character, saying the meticulous way he tried to hide his wife’s body did not change the fact that the killing was due to his impaired capacity for rational conduct.
Barnes also noted the victim’s attempt to cash a HK$4 million cheque she received from Cheung could have been a way to humiliate her husband, as she should have realised the defendant did not have the amount in his bank account.
The court reduced a third from a starting sentence of 11 years in prison to a term of seven years and four months, before ordering the sentence to be served concurrently with the 28 months slapped on Cheung for preventing the lawful burial of Chan’s body. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
