A Hong Kong couple jailed for torturing their Indonesian domestic helper over a period of two years have lost their appeal and will serve the remainder of their prison terms.
Catherine Au Yuk-shan and her husband Tai Chi-wai were handed down sentences of five years and six months and three years and three months, respectively, last September after being found guilty of beating their maid, Kartika Puspitasari, with bicycle chains and hot irons.
Yesterday Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that the couple’s claims that Puspitasar’s evidence contained contradictions and that the original trial judge So Wai-tak jumped to conclusions about the origins of the woman’s injuries were baseless.
Tai was found guilty of two counts of beating Puspitasari with a bicycle chain and his fists, while Au was found to have tortured the helper with several implements over the course of her employment.
Au’s lawyer asked the High Court to overturn or reduce her sentence as she had no previous convictions and is a mother of three. He also suggested that his client could have been provoked, but this was dismissed by Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen who said, “How could she have been provoked every day?”, according to a report by the SCMP.
The judge added that the 40 or so injuries found on Puspitasari’s body were clearly inflicted over a long time, during which she was employed by the couple. He reiterated that Judge So had taken Puspitasari’s contradictions into account in the original sentencing.
