A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to life for murdering his three-year-old daughter in 2020 by violently shaking her to death.
Lau Ka-ping, 42, appeared at the High Court on Wednesday, nearly a week after a seven-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict following a trial that lasted over 20 days.
Delivering the sentence, Judge Anna Lai said that Lau’s violence was not an isolated incident, and that he had hurt his daughter multiple times during the two months leading to her death, according to local media outlet Sing Tao.
She also cited a coroner’s report saying that the harm that Lai inflicted on the child would have caused long-term damage to her development.
According to the prosecution, Lau murdered his daughter on July 29, 2020, the date she passed away at Princess Margaret Hospital after being sent there for treatment. The girl died on her third birthday.
About a week before that, Lau was at home with his daughter when he heard her crying, and was angered because he had just fallen asleep, the court heard during the trial. He said he asked his daughter loudly, “Why are you crying?” and used his hands to shake his daughter’s shoulders.
Lau said that while he was in the bathroom, he heard a sound, and when he came out, he saw his daughter had fallen on the floor.
He said he then called the paramedics, and his daughter was brought to a hospital.
Lau personally testified during the trial, in which he admitted that he had punished his daughter before, including by shaking her by the shoulders. He said he did so because he wanted the best for her, and was afraid his daughter would “follow in [his] footsteps” and “learn bad habits” like he did.
Testifying for the prosecution during the trial, the girl’s mother, Helen Leung, said Lau was harsh towards their daughter, disciplining her if she failed to read or sing English songs, according to court news outlet The Witness.
Doctors’ reports admitted to the court showed signs of bleeding beneath the girl’s skull and in her retinas that were reminiscent of shaken baby syndrome, a serious brain injury that occurs when an infant is shaken forcefully.
The court also heard that Lau had been convicted 10 times, including for a wounding offence, in which he had poured corrosive liquid on Leung during a fight two weeks after their daughter was born. Lau was handed a 20-month jail sentence for the offence.
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights said it was “outraged by the cruel and inhuman treatment inflicted on the baby girl Nga-sze,” referring to the girl’s name.
The committee said the tragedy was not unique, citing two cases in previous years involving children who died at the hands of their caretakers.
One of the cases cited was of a five-year-old, Chan Sui-lam, also known as Lam-lam, who died in 2018 following abuse by her father and stepmother. She had over 130 wounds and scars on her body by the time of her death, the committee said. The father and stepmother were both sentenced to life for murder.
“These tragedies demand the joint effort of the community and the commitment of the government to strengthen our child protection laws and systems,” the committee wrote, adding that Hong Kong should ban corporal punishment and conduct a comprehensive review of relevant laws to better protect children.
