A 43-year-old single mother who tried to commit suicide by burning charcoal inside her Chai Wan apartment has admitted putting her son’s life at risk, but insisted she did not intend to kill him, heard the High Court on Tuesday.
Wong Po-chu – who was diagnosed with moderate to severe recurrent depressive disorder following the incident on Jul. 5, 2013 – was charged with one count of attempted murder but saw her admission of exposing a child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to his health accepted by the prosecution.
After moving from Fujian province, Wong married in Hong Kong in 2003 and gave birth to her son the following year. Since divorcing in 2011, she had fallen on tough times as she struggled with the challenges of raising her son as a single mother. “[Wong] told the officer that she did what she did because she could not see a way out at that moment,” said prosecutor Michael Arthur. Sentencing has been adjourned to Oct. 26.
Wong returned home from the supermarket on the day of her failed suicide attempt with a pack of charcoal and two bottles of water. She later penned a suicide note to her ex-husband saying that she had tried but failed to take good care of her son, but the life he forced her to endure was so difficult that she would rather they were no longer in this world.
She burnt her identity card and her son’s birth certificate, before closing the windows and burning the charcoal in the wok. However, when seeing the effect it was having on her son she told him to leave the apartment, and sent a message to her sister requesting that she looked after him. This alerted her family, who arrived on the scene shortly after to find them still there. Despite suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, both made a full recovery.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
