3
There was, however, evidence of a recent bruise on the thigh,
which could be consistent with the pinching. CHAN claimed that he had told the Police about the squeezing of his
testicles.
8.
In cross-examination, CHAN repeated that he had no idea how his wife's head came to bleed and maintained that
he had told the Police this.
9.
10.
The defence, in short, was one of prevocation.
SUMMARY.
The jury, by returning a verdict of guilty of murder, clearly rejected entirely CHAN's defence that he was provoked. In my opinion, that was the proper verdict, though the trial judge in his report says that, on the evidence as a whole, he had expected a verdict of manslaughter and the Full Court expressed the view that the verdict of murder was "surprising". The serious injuries suffered by the deceased tell heavily against CHAN, in my opinion. His version of the events is unconvincing.
11.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(a)
SALIENT FACTORS.
In his report, the trial judge recommends commutation and a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment on the basis that the killing arose from a quarrel between CHAN and his wife and was not premeditated.
The long history of marital unhappiness, culminating in the agreement to separate, may reasonably be expected to have had a considerable effect on CHAN. He is an uneducated man, with only one year's schooling. There is no reason to disbelieve his evidence about the cause of this particular quarrel, involving his belongings and ancestral tablets. There was evidence from a police officer that a threat to throw away ancestral tablets would greatly upset a Chiu Chow person.
Immediately after the incident CHAN made a 999 call requesting an ambulance and awaited the arrival of the ambulance and the police.
To summarize, it appears that he is a bad-tempered man who lost control of himself in the heat of a quarrel which occurred when he was in a state of extreme agitation due to the imminent break-up of
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