She might have lived if he had sought medical help, lawyer tells court A teenager smashed a vase on his grandmother's head, tied her hands together and left her to bleed to death when she might have been saved if he had raised the alarm, a court heard yesterday. The elderly woman died of a head injury after lying unconscious on her bedroom floor for up to 24 hours. Tang Ming-yang, 18, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his grandmother, Lau King-tai, at their flat in Tsuen Wan on July 5 last year. Prosecutor Arthur Luk SC told the Court of First Instance that the vase left two cuts on the woman's scalp which had bled profusely. He said a pathologist found 'the most likely scenario was that the head injury had caused a concussion. Because of a lack of proper care, her condition deteriorated due to [profuse bleeding] and breathing difficulties from an awkward posture and she was not able to recover consciousness and eventually died from complications of the head injury'. The court also heard the woman's necklaces had been pressing against her neck as she lay comatose on the floor. Defence counsel Kevin Egan told Madam Justice Clare-Marie Beeson the boy deeply regretted the incident. He said it was tragic case in which 'an elderly woman has lost her life and it is her 17-year-old grandson that has killed her'. 'It was the end for her and he has to live with the fact that he killed the woman who was more like a mother than his own mother,' Mr Egan said. The court heard that Tang's mother abandoned him when he was a few months old and his father remarried and left him in his grandmother's care when he was seven. Mr Egan said Tang was like many young boys on public housing estates in that he became 'wayward' and idle. Tang quit his job as a shampoo boy after only a month. His uncle then arranged a position for him as an apprentice air-conditioning repairman, but he also failed to stick at that. On the morning of the incident, the court heard Tang was confronted by his grandmother who asked him if he had been paid. But Tang had not gone to work for several days and had been trying to stave off his grandmother's suspicions. As she sat on the edge of her bed gathering joss sticks, Tang smashed a porcelain vase across her head, causing the woman to collapse to the floor. After clearing away the fragments of the vase and mopping up the blood which had gushed from his grandmother's wound, Tang wrapped her head in a towel to stop the bleeding. He then tied up Lau's hands because he was afraid she might come round. Mr Egan said the 'mental pressure' his client had faced from his grandmother had 'quite unfortunately' caused the boy to bash her over the head with the vase. He said the blow, which was not sufficient to kill the woman, had been compounded by Tang's omission in not getting medical help. 'There is a death and he was most uncaring to tie up the wrists and leave her there,' he said, but urged the court to take into account Tang's confusion at the time. Madam Justice Beeson adjourned sentencing until July 15 for a psychological report.
