61-year-old man sentenced to seven and a half years for raping daughter

A 61-year-old man was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by the High Court on Thursday for raping his 22-year-old daughter, who has mild intellectual disabilities, in 2022.

The court previously heard that the unemployed man -- referred as L.C.K. -- committed the rape in July 2022 at their Tuen Mun residence. His daughter informed her mother who lives separately after the incident and the mother reported to the police.

L.C.K. had pleaded guilty to one count of rape.

According to a medical report, it was revealed that his daughter had been sexually assaulted multiple times by the defendant since her grandmother passed away in 2021. She only felt a sense of relief once he was arrested.

In mitigation, the defense stated that L.C.K. also suffers from intellectual challenges and has an IQ of 63, claiming he does not understand common sense.

In sentencing, Deputy High Court Judge Eric Kwok Tung-ming said according to the psychological report, the defendant could still live and work independently and was able to discern right from wrong.

He mentioned that the defendant's regret for the crime seemed superficial, and therefore, no reduction in the sentence for his intellectual challenges will be given.

The court set a starting point of 12 years for the sentence but reduced it by one-third for his guilty plea, which spared the victim from having to appear in court to testify. The sentence was further reduced by six months, culminating in a final sentence of seven and a half years in prison.