HUNG PIK SANG AND ANOTHER v. THE QUEEN

CACC000435/1976

  

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
on appeal from the District Court

	1976 No. 435
	(Criminal)

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BETWEEN
	HUNG PIK SANG	Appellants
	CHIN FUNG SHAN
	and
	THE QUEEN	Respondent

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Coram: Pickering, Ag. C. J., McMullin, Ag. J. A. & Leonard, J.

Date of Judgment: 9th August 1976.

  

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JUDGMENT

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Pickering, Ag. C. J.:

1. We dismissed as without substance the appeals against conviction of the appellants, husband and wife, in respect, so far as the female appellant is concerned, of two charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and, in the case of her husband, three such charges, three of wounding with intent and four of criminal intimidation. The victim in all these charges was the couple's 23-year-old amah and the injuries which she sustained were both widespread and serious.

2. On the appeal against sentence we declined to interfere with the term of seven years' imprisonment imposed upon the male appellant but did direct, since he is confined to a wheelchair, that it be a condition of his police supervision after his release that the police visit him at his home rather than that he has to attend at a police station. In regard to the female appellant we reduced the sentence of seven years' imprisonment imposed upon her to one of four years. Our reasons for so doing were that she was charged with only two offences as compared with ten charges levelled against her husband; the injuries which the wife inflicted upon the girl were less serious than those inflicted by her husband or which he terrorised the girl into inflicting upon herself; moreover the wife's offences were undoubtedly committed under the influence of her husband and with some macabre idea of pleasing him - a situation which, as Mr. Polson, for the Crown, very fairly remarked would, until relatively recent years, have afforded a defence of itself. On the reverse side of the coin it is the fact that the female appellant is by profession a nurse who so far abandoned the curative and healing ideals of her profession as deliberately to inflict injuries which, if less serious than those caused by her husband, were nonetheless considerable.

3. We do not consider that the necessity for police supervision will arise until the husband is released from prison nor that it was in any way necessary in the wife's case and accordingly we set aside the order made against her for two years' police supervision.

  

Representation:

Patrick Woo (K. C. Yung & Co.) for first and second appellants.

Polson, C.C., for respondent.