South China Morning Post
A Hong Kong couple has been found guilty of murdering their five-year-old daughter three years ago in one of the city’s most horrifying cases of child abuse in memory. The girl’s 56-year-old step-grandmother was also convicted of two out of four counts of child cruelty. A High Court jury of three men and four women on Monday returned the verdicts after 10 hours of deliberations, following a month of heartbreaking testimony from family members, teachers and doctors.Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Murder and manslaughter are both punishable by life imprisonment, while the cruelty charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. All three defendants had no prior convictions. The father was found guilty of murder by a unanimous vote, while the stepmother was convicted by a 6-1 majority. The grandmother was cleared of ill-treatment of the children unanimously, but found guilty of two counts of neglect by a vote of 6-1. None of the defendants showed a visible reaction to the verdicts. Hong Kong child abuse escalating as pandemic sees children, stressed parents together more at home: expert The judge will hear mitigation on Wednesday and sentence them on April 20. The step-grandmother’s bail was revoked, while the parents have been remanded since their arrest in January 2018. The shocking abuse first came to light on January 6, 2018, when the child was rushed unconscious to Tuen Mun Hospital, in a diaper, her body covered with some 130 injuries. On the same day, her eight-year-old brother was also sent to hospital, where he was found with about the same number of injuries on his underweight body. The children’s 29-year-old father, a transport worker, and 30-year-old stepmother, a housewife, admitted they had ill-treated and neglected them over a period of 150 days, since they moved in with the step-grandmother on August 10, 2017, but denied murdering the girl. The death sparked public outrage and brought renewed attention to the city’s child protection measures, and in the aftermath, the government announced new arrangements for reporting pupils’ absence and suspected abuse, introduced more social workers, and revised its guidelines on handling similar cases in the future. Public interest was also evident from the regular full attendance in court and heated online discussions, which included comments so alarming it prompted Mr Justice Albert Wong Sung-hau to ask correctional services to pay more attention to the couple’s life in prison. One post read: “Hope someone inside will take care of them.” “Convict them already and let the inmates assault them,” wrote another. Death of girl, 5, sparks calls for more help for Hong Kong schools in tackling child abuse The judge has issued a gag order barring the identification of the family members and schools involved, to protect the siblings and their stepsister, who was not abused. But that did not stop the online doxxing of one teacher, even after his full name was withheld by the media. Murder and manslaughter are both punishable by life imprisonment, while the cruelty charge carries a maximum term of 10 years. All three defendants had no prior convictions. An autopsy concluded the girl had died of septicaemia after she was infected by two kinds of bacteria: salmonella enteritidis and staphylococcus aureus. Derek Lai Kim-wah, the senior assistant director of public prosecutions, said the chronic abuse was a significant cause of the girl’s death because it weakened her immune system’s ability to fight the salmonella infection that eventually killed her. That was reflected by the experts’ finding of the change in the girl’s thymus – a vital organ responsible for the production of white blood cells that fight salmonella – which had been reduced to its smallest size, despite it generally being at its largest in children her age, in response to toxic stress. Opinion: Hong Kong’s child abuse laws must be updated as a matter of urgency in 2021 The parents accepted they caused the death and offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, but that was rejected by the prosecution. The murder charge hinges on the question of whether the parents had the intent to cause the girl grievous bodily harm at some point via their ill treatment or neglect. One example offered by prosecutors was denying her food for three to four days on three occasions in November and December 2017, when she was also experiencing other forms of abuse. But both parents have denied having such an intent, and said they did not know about the deterioration of the thymus when they used corporal punishment for the purpose of “teaching”. Number of child abuse cases in Hong Kong hits 14-year high, as activists urge action As for the step-grandmother, Lai said the most serious crime she committed was neglecting the children in her care, in the flat she owned, as she could have stopped the punishments and saved the girl. But the grandparent, an accounting clerk, said she did intervene, while questioning if the children were truly in her care. She also denied using a rattan stick on the children. Halfway through trial, her defence counsel Chase Pun argued she had no case to answer, because the prosecution’s allegations rested on inconsistent accounts given by the children. But Wong ruled against her on all four counts. She did not testify. The Social Welfare Department has been following up on the girl’s brother and stepsister since January 2018, providing clinical psychological services, residential care and financial assistance. A spokesman said the department would continue to provide support and services as appropriate. The Post has been told the boy has been returned to his paternal grandmother’s care, without requiring further counselling since 2019, while the stepsister has been placed in foster care. Both were accompanied by social workers when they testified against their parents and grandmother in a separate room via a live television link.This article Hong Kong couple found guilty of murdering 5-year-old daughter in child abuse case that gripped city first appeared on South China Morning PostFor the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2021.
