A judge said extreme care should be taken before considering the release from psychiatric care of a high-risk paranoid schizophrenic, suffering from illusions and hallucinations, who stabbed his neighbour to death.
'A lengthy hospital order should and must be made in these circumstances,' Mr Justice Michael McMahon said of Ling Wai-ming, 50, who killed his neighbour. He noted Ling had acted out his psychiatric problems in violent ways and that he had no insight into what he had done.
'The utmost caution should be exercised before any consideration should be given to releasing the defendant into the community,' the judge said.The judge was speaking at the Court of First Instance, where Ling was earlier convicted of one count of manslaughter and found not guilty of murder on the basis of diminished responsibility because he suffered severe paranoid schizophrenia. He was convicted after trial by jury.
Yesterday, the judge sent Ling to have psychiatric treatment under a hospital order. Ling, who believed his neighbour and others were spies and had tried to poison him, broke into the apartment of Feng Zhiying, 57 - who lived next to him in Lung Tin Estate in Tai O - at 2am on June 25 last year and stabbed her more than 40 times.
A security guard went to Feng's flat after she called him for help. The guard arrived to see a bloodstained Ling leaving the flat. Police later found Feng in the bathroom.
The afternoon of the killing, Ling, a former MTR train driver and food-product agent, was found wandering in Tung Chung with a knife, stained with Feng's blood, in his pocket.
