A 77-year-old man who bludgeoned his wife to death with a hammer was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to seven years in jail this morning.
A jury unanimously found Woo Kam-cheung not guilty of murdering his wife, Lai Sau-fong, yesterday.
Deputy Judge Gareth Lugar-Mawson told Woo that there was “no evidence to show you are a violent man and the jury accepted that you committed the offence out of character”, SCMP reports.
However, the Lugar-Mawson said he would have handed Woo a harsher sentence based on the aggressive nature of the attack, had it not been for his age and good background.
Lai and Woo’s three children wrote a letter to the court expressing their forgiveness for their father.
The court heard how the married couple had a falling out in their Wong Tai Sin flat after Lai apparently accused Woo of pocketing some of their social assistance for himself.
After the elderly pair began “an exchange of throwing banana skins at each other”, Woo claims that Lai then picked up a knife, and he only used the hammer in self-defence.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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