Need information of Hello Kitty藏屍案(In english)

04/March

Hello Kitty killer's sentence cut to 18 years

The last of the Hello Kitty killers, originally jailed for life, was sentenced to 18 years' jail yesterday for his role in one of Hong Kong's most gruesome manslaughter cases.

In jailing Leung Shing-cho, 29, Mr Justice Thomas Gall, sitting in the Court of First Instance, said the only mitigating factor he could consider was his guilty plea.

Suffice to say that ... this is a very serious case of manslaughter, he said.

Victim Fan Man-yee, 23, was last seen alive by her mother and two-year-old son when she was escorted from her home on March 17, 1999, by Leung, 29, a Wo Shing Wo triad member, after she failed to repay a $4,000 debt that had spiralled to $30,000.

On May 26 that year, police found Fan's decomposed heart, lungs, liver and intestines in a plastic bag on a first-floor canopy over Granville Road.

Inside an apartment upstairs, they recovered her skull, which had been sewn inside a Hello Kitty doll, as well as a tooth.

Mr Justice Gall said his first step in sentencing Leung was to put a figure on the life sentence given to his co-accused so he could deduct one-third for the early guilty plea.

Leung was initially jailed for life in December 2000 along with co-accused Chan Man-lok, 29, and Leung Wai-lun, 23, after a Court of First Instance cleared them of murder but convicted them of manslaughter for the death of Fan in April 1999.

Last May, the Court of Appeal overturned Leung Shing-cho's conviction and ordered a retrial on a charge of manslaughter after finding Mr Justice Nguyen had misdirected the jury while summing up. Because of Leung's guilty plea, his case went to a sentence hearing.

Mr Justice Gall yesterday accepted defence counsel Richard Donald's submission that his client's guilty plea was not an attempt to lessen his involvement in the torture of Fan over a month.

He ordered the 18-year term be served concurrently with the nine years he was already serving - six years for false imprisonment and three years for preventing Fan's lawful burial.