TNAG-0487-FCO40-552-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 183

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swore at his wife that she then, as he put it, dashed against him using her hands to pinch his thigh and that he felt much pain and pushed her onto the floor with his hands. The prisoner then said. that an iron chair was picked up and that he hit his wife's head a few times with the iron chair but that she again pinched his thigh and he hit her on the head again a few times with the iron chair. (It is not clear from the prisoner's statement who in fact

first picked up the iron chair). That he then saw that her head was bleeding and she fainted and fell to the floor, that he was very frightened and ran to the next door room to tell his fellow native villager's wife, and that he used this woman's telephone

to dial 999. That afterwards he returned home to apply some

medicated oil to his wife's nose and that after a while the

ambulance arrived and took his wife away. He said that at that

time he had no intention of killing or harming his wife but that he hit her with the iron chair just because of a moment's irritation.

On the 6th April 1973 the prisoner was formally charged

with murder and in answer to the charge he made a short statement

in which he said "At that time I was at a moment of impulse.

was her who pinched me first so I took something to hit her."

Evidence was also given by two City District Officers that from

time to time since 1969 the prisoner and his wife had been coming

to the City District Office at Eastern District with complaints of

quarrels and minor assaults and that the prisoner also came on his

own for assistance in tracing his wife on the occasions that she

had left him. Neither officer seemed to take the quarrels seriously

and usually the prisoner and his wife were reconciliated until the

next quarrel. The last occasion upon which the prisoner and his wife visited the City District Office was on the 2nd April 1973, two days before the fatal quarrel and it was agreed that they

would separate and for the sake of the wife and children that

the prisoner would leave the matrimonial home in a week's time.

It

Evidence was also given by the prisoner's daughter that her father and mother had not got on well together for some time and that her father assaulted her mother, as she put it, with his