Chu Chun-kwok received over $4.94m in police compensation, awarded gallantry medal

Constable Chu Chun-kwok, who died on Wednesday at 52 after being paralysed in a knife attack in 2005, received more than HK$4.94 million in subsidies and compensation from the police force, and was awarded the Gold Medal for Bravery.

Chu was attacked on July 19, 2005, while on solo patrol in Cheung Sha Wan. Despite his neck artery being severed, he chased the attacker for about 50 metres before collapsing from blood loss. He suffered severe brain damage and was left quadriplegic, unable to speak or care for himself.

According to court documents submitted by the Department of Justice in 2011, the police force had paid Chu over HK$4.94 million in subsidies and compensation in the five years after the attack. The department sought an order for the attacker, Liu Chi-yung, to bear all or part of the sum.

Chu's wife also filed a civil claim on behalf of her husband, who was assessed as lacking legal capacity, against Liu and the Secretary for Justice. The case was settled in 2016, with the amount kept confidential. As Liu had been declared bankrupt, neither Chu's family nor the Department of Justice pursued him further.

In 2006, Chu was awarded the Gold Medal for Bravery. The citation praised his "exceptional courage" in chasing the armed attacker despite heavy bleeding, describing him as "the highest example of bravery."

Several police commissioners and senior officers visited Chu over the years. In 2007, then commissioner Tang King-shing, along with Andy Tsang Wai-hung and John Lee Ka-chiu, visited him in Guangzhou, where he was receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy funded by the police welfare fund. Chu's family described former commissioner Dick Lee Ming-kwai as the "most caring" of the visitors.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓