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SCMP Reporter

A MAN who had been sentenced to death for killing his lover, her husband and their two children told the Court of Appeal that he should not have been convicted of murder.

 Kang Hoi-tong, 56, complained that insufficient emphasis had been given by the trial judge to the jury to the defence of diminished responsibility.

 Kang in his defence had claimed that he was suffering from morbid jealousy at the time of the killings and his mental state was abnormal and unstable.

 He had denied murdering his lover, businesswoman Mrs Tse Yeung Wai-yin, her husband, lift operator Mr Tse Yuen-fong, 42, their son Wai-man, 17, and daughter Ah-wing, 15, both students.

 He was found guilty and sentenced by Mr Justice Wong in November 1990.

  It was the Crown's case that Mrs Tse gave birth to a son, Wai-kuen, whom they passed off as Mr Tse's child. The lovers' relationship then began to deteriorate.

 On June 9, 1989, Kang killed Mrs Tse and Wai-man with an axe and the father and daughter with a hammer. He took Wai-kuen to Macau, where his family lived.

 His counsel, Mr Gilbert Rodway, QC, leading Ms Lisa Yip, told the appeal court that Kang offered to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but his plea was not accepted.

 During the trial, Mr Rodway said, the issue was not whether Kang had perpetrated the killing, but whether he was suffering from such an abnormality of mind that it had substantially impaired his sense of responsibility.

  In his summing-up, the trial judge spent most of the time on the side issues of self-defence and provocation, Mr Rodway said.

 The hearing continues.



Four-times killer denies murder at appeal