An elderly husband who splashed his wife and daughter with acid has lost his appeal against a four-year prison sentence in the Court of Appeal.

The appeal by 72-year-old Cheung Cho-fat was filed in response to his sentencing on the charges last August. Cheung's counsel Michael Leung argued the punishment meted out was excessive because Cheung's wife had forgiven him.

In a judgment handed down Monday, Justice of the Appeal Court Michael Hartmann wrote that Cheung's sentence was justified because it would serve as a deterrent to others against committing what he called, "a particularly vicious crime, one viewed with understandable abhorrence by right-thinking members of society."

"Almost always, as in the present case, the person's face is chosen as the principle target, the inevitable intent being to disfigure in a permanent and grotesque way," he wrote.

Cheung had pleaded guilty to two counts of throwing acid with intent to cause serious bodily harm. Based upon his guilty plea he was given a two-year remission of sentence based upon the statutory term of six years' imprisonment for the offense. Hartmann rejected the argument that the four years' duration of Cheung's incarceration was excessive. The judge cited a prior case in which another husband who attacked his wife with acid was sentenced to 13 years.

Cheung's counsel had also argued that the original trial judge failed to take into account certain statements made by Cheung that were at variance with a summary of facts acknowledged by Cheung at the time he entered plea.

Leung claimed Cheung was out to do some evening cleaning when he by chance saw his estranged wife and went to her house to ask for money.

Leung also submitted that Cheung carried the acid into the house because he was inebriated at the time, did not premeditate his crime and threw the acid only when he became angry when he was refused money. Cheung also claimed he did not willfully splash his wife's face.

Also submitted in mitigation was an allegation that Cheung's daughter tried to scald him with boiling water after the first attack.

When asked to produce evidence in support of the new evidence, Leung was instructed by his client to drop the matter and the challenge to the summary of facts in the case was abandoned.

At the original trial, the court heard Cheung had separated from his wife in 2008 after an argument over money.

On January 22, the woman returned to her Tuen Mun home leaving the door unlocked. She started to cook dinner. Then she saw her husband enter her home, carrying two jars containing corrosive cleaner, with 88 percent sulfuric acid content.

According to court documents, Cheung suddenly "shoved some of the fluid" from one of the jars into his wife's face.

Running to the washroom, she sought shelter behind her daughter and both were splashed by contents from the second jar in a second attack immediately afterwards.

The wife received burns to her face and arms while the daughter suffered injuries to her arms and neck.

The couple have been married for some 50 years and have four children.

China Daily

(HK Edition 07/13/2010 page1)