Depressed man who killed friend jailed 6 years

A man who stabbed his closest friend to death was jailed for six years yesterday. Mr Justice Alan Wright in the Court of First Instance accepted that Lui Sheung-yu, 20, suffered from a serious depressive disorder at the time of Lai Ming-sin's death in August last year in the stairwell of the Regal Riverside Hotel in Sha Tin.

Lui had agreed in court to continue psychiatric treatment. Medical reports also suggested that he posed a low risk for future violence.

Those factors, together with his remorse, lack of premeditation and a guilty plea to manslaughter, justified a non-custodial sentence for the mentally ill man, barrister Peter Duncan SC had argued.

But Lui took knives to the hotel - where he said he planned to commit suicide - and took the life of his 'closest confidante', one of the few people who had shown him kindness, Mr Justice Wright said.

Lai had a total of 71 stab wounds.

'I find this a particularly difficult matter for which to arrive at an appropriate sentence,' the judge said. 'But it does not change the fact that [Lui] has taken the life of another with violence. Only an immediate custodial sentence can meet the gravity of this offence.'