Prison sentences are a must in fatal Hong Kong beauty blunder case, judge says
Doctor and technician found guilty of manslaughter after using unproven treatment are to be sentenced on Monday, as prosecutors eye retrial for third defendant who jury failed to reach verdict on
A Hong Kong beauty clinic owner and a laboratory technician who offered an experimental cancer therapy that killed a healthy woman five years ago will learn of their punishments on Monday.
But their co-defendant, a doctor who administered the treatment, will have to wait until January to learn whether she will face a retrial, after a jury failed to reach a majority verdict on her manslaughter charge on Tuesday.
Mrs Justice Judianna Barnes Wai-ling indicated that a “custodial sentence is a must in this case”. Hong Kong’s High Court earlier heard how Dr Stephen Chow Heung-wing’s DR Group sold injections, prepared by his laboratory technician Chan Kwun-chung, that poisoned the bloodstream of four women in 2012, one of whom died.
Chow and Chan were both found guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday after a 100-day trial. All three defendants had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
“It’s a matter of how long,” the judge said on Wednesday, referring to prison sentences. “The way [the therapy] was launched, absolutely prematurely, when they didn’t know what they were doing, the way they sold it to customers, to me, is an aggravating factor.”
