Woman who cut off lover's penis not a 'murderer'
Jury finds mainlander guilty of manslaughter instead and she is sentenced to 7 years in jail
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 15 March, 2014, 4:11am
UPDATED : Saturday, 15 March, 2014, 4:49am
Austin Chiu [email protected]
A woman who drugged her married lover then cut off his penis and beat him to death with a hammer after he forcibly had sex with her was jailed for seven years yesterday after being found guilty of manslaughter but not murder.
Yeung Ki, 41, gave 32-year-old Zhou Hui soup laced with sleeping pills before cutting off his entire penis with a pair of scissors and flushing it down the toilet, the prosecution told the Court of First Instance.
She then used a hammer to rain countless blows upon his face and the back of his head.
Yeung, a mainlander living in Hong Kong on a one-way permit, admitted killing Zhou - who was a temporary two-way permit visitor - in her public-housing flat in Chai Wan on Boxing Day 2012. But she denied murder, saying she was provoked and suffering from depression.
Yeung told police that Zhou, a piano teacher, had beaten her and her four-year-old daughter because she had refused to give him HK$200,000 to buy a car and the little girl had refused to call him "daddy". The court also heard that Zhou threatened to beat the pair to death and to post nude pictures of Yeung on the internet.
He then stripped her and had sex with her by force.
After deliberating for four and a half hours, the jury of three women and four men unanimously found her not guilty of murder but guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
On hearing the verdict, Yeung, wearing a red quilted jacket, shivered and sobbed in the dock.
"It was a very grave crime," Mr Justice Peter Line said in sentencing. "He was a healthy young man. You knew he had a family. He has parents and a wife.
"The verdict returned by the jury has saved you from life imprisonment.
"That the victim forcibly had sexual intercourse with you while your daughter was present mitigated the killing."
The judge also accepted evidence by a psychiatrist testifying for Yeung that under such provocation, her depression had significantly affected her.
"You never denied unlawful killing and admitted it at the trial. I perceived genuine remorse in you," the judge said.
While the prosecution said Yeung cut off Zhou's entire penis, she testified that she had cut off only a small part.
She told police that at the time of the attack, he was asleep after she spiked his soup. The court heard he had worn just a shirt and no trousers or underwear.
The day after the killing, she confessed to a social worker: "I cut it. I think it was cruel. I did not mean it."
