Murder accused’s eye contact enough to scare daughter, Hong Kong court hears
Defendant Lau Kai-ping insisted on harsh treatment for his daughter and forced girl’s mother to follow, High Court trial told
A Hong Kong man suspected of repeatedly abusing his three-year-old daughter months before he allegedly shook her to death shifted his use of domestic violence from his partner to the girl so that even eye contact with him frightened her, a court heard on Thursday.
Helen Leung, mother of Leung Nga-sze, who died in July 2020, told the High Court that Lau Kai-ping, the girl’s father and her then partner, had frequently picked a fight with her over their different parenting styles, insisting on harsh treatment for the girl and forcing her to follow.
Leung told the court that Lau, 42, had used “all possible ways” to intimidate, threaten and make the child obey his orders.
“While my daughter was still in foster care, I felt like I was the person whom he had control over. After she came back, it seemed like he tried to control her by all means,” she said in the witness box.
“He used to abuse me and damaged my personal items. I saw what had happened to me happening to my daughter.”
The court previously heard that the child was placed in foster care for the first two years of her life by the Social Welfare Department after Lau attacked her mother with corrosive liquid in 2017.