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Agnes Lam

Anita Lam

Two children whose hands and feet were bound  were thrown to their deaths from a 24th-floor flat in Tin Shui Wai early yesterday minutes before their mentally ill mother leaped  to her death from the same apartment.
The tragedy prompted calls for more support and resources to help mental patients and their families.
The mother, Mak Fuk-tai, 36, and her children Chan Po-yee, 12, and Chan Tung-man, nine, were found dead after falling from their flat in  Yiu Fung House at about 4am.
Mak's  husband, Chan Kai-lam, 47, is a terminally ill cancer patient in Tuen Mun Hospital.
Yuen Long assistant district commander Albert Ng Ka-wah said: 'The hands and feet of the little girl were tied up, and the little boy's hands were tied up. A suicide note was found inside the unit, and windows were wide open. There was no sign of struggle inside the unit.
'We have classified the case as suspected murder and suicide.'
A police source at the scene said the father was very upset and agitated after learning the news.
A suicide note,  posted on a wall inside the flat, revealed that Mak felt very sad, as her husband was chronically ill. She was also worried about her children's future.
A security guard at the block, who did not reveal his name, said:  'A girl's body landed outside Yiu Fung House on the ground floor minutes after I heard some noise. Then a little boy's body landed, and the body of an older woman landed on the ground floor after about one minute.'
A neighbour said Mak, who had been treated at Castle Peak Hospital about two years ago, had been wearing red clothes when she jumped. A police spokeswoman said a post mortem examination would be conducted on the victims.
The family was on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, and the couple was unemployed. The mother and her daughter were  mainland migrants who had lived in Hong Kong for more than seven years.
Teachers at Chiu Yang Por Yen Primary School, where the two children studied in Primary Three and Primary Six, had an urgent meeting yesterday. School principal Lam Pik-chu said the brother and sister were very well behaved students. A contingency plan to handle the impact of the incident had been activated to offer counselling service to students.
'The mother loved her children dearly and she cared about them very much,' she said after the meeting.
Tin Shui Wai has been branded the 'city of sadness' for its  record of family violence. In 2004, the government set up an independent panel on domestic violence after a murder-suicide involving  a family of four in the district  sounded the alarm. The panel issued 25 recommendations in 2005  calling for better inter-departmental co-ordination and better training of social workers.
But social welfare lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung  said services to the needy remained fragmented and inconvenient.
The helpline services of the Social Welfare Department and the three integrated family services centres were out of service yesterday,  while a  call to the 24-hour family crisis hotline of the Caritas group was answered by  machine.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung  said the government would soon improve  helpline services at the Social Welfare Department and add 58 social workers to the team handling domestic violence. He said the administration would implement a panel's suggestion to set up a review system for child fatality cases by early next year.



Mother leaps to her death after children thrown from 24th floor