Hong Kong father found guilty of murdering girl, 3, by violently shaking her
High Court jury reaches unanimous verdict and finds Lau Kai-ping, 42, guilty of killing daughter Leung Nga-sze
A Hong Kong man has been convicted of murdering his three-year-old daughter by violently shaking her to death in 2020.
A seven-member High Court jury reached a unanimous verdict on Thursday, taking less than three hours to find Lau Kai-ping, 42, guilty of killing Leung Nga-sze.
The girl was discovered unresponsive in a Sham Shui Po flat on July 18, 2020, with Lau telling paramedics who arrived at the scene that she had “slipped”.
Hospital doctors found signs of bleeding beneath the girl’s skull and in her retinas, along with old bruises on her inner thighs, abnormal injuries that led them to suspect child abuse, the court heard.
Nga-sze was transferred to the paediatric intensive care unit of Princess Margaret Hospital in Kwai Chung for further treatment, but died on July 29.
Prosecutors told the month-long trial that medical experts had concluded Nga-sze’s injuries were highly characteristic of shaken baby syndrome, which is caused by violently shaking a child.
The girl’s mother, Helen Leung, had also testified that Lau had grabbed his daughter for no reason and shook her for about 10 seconds on at least eight occasions. He had also held her upside down so her head hit the floor and doused her with cold water in the shower.