A three-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by her father was loved by his family but that still could not have saved her from being abused by him, her mother told a Hong Kong court on Tuesday, describing the accused as a “dangerous man”.
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Helen Leung said she and her daughter’s father, Lau Kai-ping, had constant disagreements over his harsh parenting style, which had resulted in the girl having low self esteem and crying more often in his presence.
Daughter Leung Nga-sze, born in July 2017, was placed in foster care for the first two years of her life after Lau was jailed for attacking her mother with a corrosive liquid. The mother only took her back in early 2020 to her flat in Sham Shui Po.
After Lau was released from prison in mid-2020, Leung brought the girl to meet him at his parents’ home in Sha Tin and briefly stayed there for two to three weeks.
Leung told the High Court that Lau always punished Nga-sze by ordering her to stand facing the wall and to twist her own ears. Sometimes, he would tell her to kneel on the floor because she did not greet every family member as she entered his parents’ home.
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On May 13 that year, Leung took the girl back to her Sham Shui Po flat after Lau surreptitiously tried to harm his daughter in a room at his family’s home and subsequently punched her a few times.
But defence counsel Cheung Yiu-leung questioned why Leung decided to take the girl away from her grandparents, arguing she should have considered what were the best living conditions for her daughter.