Five jailed for sickening chopper attack on Hong Kong schoolboy, 7

Nov 29, 2006, 7:21 GMT

Hong Kong - Five people were Wednesday jailed for up to 18 years in Hong Kong for a vicious chopper attack on a seven-year-old schoolboy on the orders of his stepmother.

Judge Peter Line called the attack, in which two attackers tried to hack off the boy's right hand with meat cleavers, one of the 'wickedest, cold-blooded and brutal' incidents of recent years.

He said the two teenagers and the people behind the attack had the intention of completely severing the boy's right hand and should expect no mercy.

The attack last August was ordered by the boy's 21-year-old stepmother, who had a newborn baby by the boy's father and wanted her husband to give up his son from a previous marriage.

She recruited former boyfriend Tsang Ho-wai and paid him to recruit two teenager to attack Shum Ho-yin as he walked home from school with his grandmother and attempt to hack of his hand.

Tsang was convicted of wounding and jailed for 18 years at Wednesday's sentencing. The two 17-year-old hired to carry out the attack were jailed for nine and 10 years for wounding.

A taxi driver hired as a getaway driver and a go-between, carrying orders from the stepmother to the former boyfriend, was jailed for two years.

Stepmother Hung Man-yee was also convicted of wounding but sentence was adjourned for reports after her lawyer claimed she had been suffering post-natal depression at the time of the attack.

The vicious attack on Ho-yin last August lasted for 10 minutes and left the boy with deep chop wounds which severed tendons, nerves and arteries and fractured bones.

Earlier in the hearing, Ho-yin's grandmother, 67, described how she was pulled away from her grandson as two teenagers attacked him. She then held his mangled arm and screamed to bystanders for help.

The brutality of the attack shocked Hong Kong, where attacks with knives and meat cleavers are usually confined to feuds between rival triad gangs.

Ho-yin had his right hand sewn back on and is slowly regaining use of it. He receives twice-weekly physiotherapy treatment on his injured arm.