Hong Kong mother sentenced to 9 months of psychiatric treatment for killing son

A Hong Kong court has sentenced a mother to nine months of inpatient psychiatric treatment at a prison facility after she admitted to killing her son when she attempted suicide three years ago.

The High Court on Tuesday adopted two psychiatrists’ recommendations to send homemaker Stephanie Tam Wai-man to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre in Tuen Mun.

She was earlier held on remand for more than three years over the death of her 16-month-old son, Jasper Hui Wai-nam, in May 2022.

The 45-year-old defendant pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility after prosecutors accepted she was suffering from a severe episode of major depressive disorder when she burned charcoal alongside her child at their public rental flat in Yuen Long’s Shui Pin Wai Estate.

The court heard that Tam had been under enormous stress due to her strained relationship with her then-husband, her son’s health problems and the family’s financial difficulties.

Tam said her former partner, furniture salesman Hui Kei-tat, failed to give the family the necessary financial and emotional support, forcing her to take care of their son using her own savings.