A 54-year-old self-styled Taoist practitioner who had sexually assaulted and murdered a 21-year-old intellectually disabled girl, and the victim's 57-year-old mother, who aided the self-proclaimed “exorcist” in the acts, have both been granted permission to challenge their murder and indecency convictions and penalties at Hong Kong’s High Court.
The case dates back to the summer of 2019 in a village house in Sai Kung’s Lung Mei Tsuen.
During what was described as an exorcism, the man, a registered Chinese medicine practitioner named Dunsany Cheung Chi-choi, forced alcohol down the young woman’s throat and slammed her head against a wall.
The victim, Ng Yan-yu, later died of pneumonia. The original trial judge ruled that these actions caused her death and convicted Cheung of murder, while Ng’s mother, Ng Ma Yu-kang, was found guilty of assisting in the indecent assault.
In a written ruling released today, Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal of the High Court Judge Kevin Zervos highlighted doubts over the chain of causation between Cheung’s actions and the pneumonia that killed Ng.
Medical evidence showed the alcohol intoxication and head injury were not immediately fatal, and the trial judge had failed to give the jury specific guidance on whether Cheung could reasonably foresee that his conduct would almost certainly lead to death or serious harm—a key legal test drawn from the R v Woollin case.
Both Cheung’s defense and the Department of Justice agreed this omission warranted review, prompting the appeal green light on the murder conviction.
Both defendants also received the statutory maximum 10-year terms for the indecency offenses, which the original judge branded among the most vicious and inhumane imaginable.
Appeal lawyers argued the sentences were manifestly excessive compared to similar cases, and while prosecutors defended the terms as appropriate, they conceded the issue was arguable.
Zervos noted that reserving the top penalty for only the worst offenses made this an ideal case for the Court of Appeal to reassess.
The original jury had unanimously convicted Cheung of both murder and indecent assault between August 1 and September 2, 2019, and Ng’s mother of abetting the assault on an unspecified day that August.
