Ming Yongfang, 41, pleaded guilty to attacking her husband’s mistress with a kitchen knife during her appearance at District Court on Monday, one year after she was arrested for stabbing Wong Siu-jun, 55, inside the lobby of an apartment block on Nelson Street.
Defense attorney Albert Luk told the court that Ming, a mainlander, married her husband in 2008 and in the same year gave birth to their daughter. Ming finally moved to Hong Kong in 2013 and the family moved to Tai Kok Tsui where Ming was a housewife.
Ming’s husband later got a job working for an “environmental protection company”, and, in 2014, he met Wong, who was one of his subordinates, Ming Pao reports.
Ming began suspecting that her husband was having an affair, as he often did not return home from work, and the couple regularly fought. Then, in 2016, Ming’s husband decided that the couple needed some time apart for things to “calm down” and he moved out of the family home.
The defense said that Ming — who was at this point suffering from depression and anorexia — later found out in early 2017 that her husband had moved in with Wong, who was living in the apartment on Nelson Street, and went there to try and persuade her husband to return home.
However, the court heard, Wong got in the way, injured Ming, and prevented the estranged couple from meeting.
The defendant said she initially wanted to report the incident to the police, but her husband persuaded her not to file a report, Apple Daily reports.
Luk added that Ming and Wong often got into arguments over the phone and that Ming accused Wong of interfering with her marriage by persuading her husband to leave her and not grant his wife and daughter alimony.
Then, on Jan. 15, Ming, armed with an eight inch-long kitchen knife, went to the lobby of the building to confront Wong. A fight broke out between the two that resulted in Ming pulling out the knife.
Ming stabbed Wong in the abdomen twice and both women were wrestling each other on the floor while pulling at each other’s hair.
During the scuffle, Wong yelled “call the police,” which prompted Ming to yell back “call the police then, I’m ready to die, you stole my husband and cheated him out of his money!”
The court heard that Wong was stabbed in the liver and was discharged from hospital seven days later after receiving surgery.
Luk said that Wong had provoked Ming first, that Ming was simply acting in self defense, that she realized that her actions were reckless, that she felt remorse for what she had done, that she would accept any punishment the court handed her and that she just wanted to go home as soon as possible to look after her 11-year-old daughter.
Ming’s daughter also pleaded with the magistrate in a letter to show leniency, adding that “auntie [Wong] would often phone to argue with mom,” and that Wong even told her mother to die, and that Wong wouldn’t let her dad come home.
She ended her letter with the words: “Please let my mom come home soon, I really want to eat her home-cooked food.”
Also in the courtroom was Ming’s husband, whom the defense said had also written a letter to the court saying he felt remorse for what he had done to his wife and has since moved back in with the family.
Magistrate Katherine Lo Kit-yee adjourned the case to January 30 for sentencing.
Reader Interactions