Hong Kong woman faces jail for cutting baby from mother's womb

Oct 27, 2009, 10:14 GMT

   Hong Kong - A Hong Kong woman desperate for a child was Tuesday told she faces a jail sentence after admitting cutting open a heavily pregnant woman's stomach to try to steal her baby.

   Leung Sin-ting, 27, faked a pregnancy by padding her stomach and showing her husband other women's scan images before the attack which left the unborn infant fatally wounded. The mother survived.

   She met her 37-weeks-pregnant victim on a childcare website in September 2008, lured her to her home and strangled her with a cord before slashing a 10-centimetre wound into the unconscious woman's stomach.

   Leung lost her nerve before removing the baby and her husband returned home to find his wife in the kitchen with the woman unconscious and bleeding on the floor, Hong Kong's High Court heard.

   The victim, identified only as Ms Lee, survived the attack but the infant, delivered by emergency caesarean in hospital after the attack, suffered brain damage and died six months later.

   Leung admitted manslaughter of the baby at an earlier hearing. A murder charge was dropped after the prosecution accepted she intended only to remove the baby from the mother's womb and not kill it.

   At Tuesday's hearing, the presiding judge told Leung a jail term was 'inevitable' considering the severity of her offence and remanded her in custody until November 25.

   In interviews, Leung told police she planned the attack because she was jealous of the pregnant woman's happiness and wanted the child herself.

   Desperate for a baby despite being unable to conceive, she had fooled her husband of four years, family and friends into believing she was pregnant by padding her stomach.

   The judge was due to sentence Leung Tuesday but adjourned the hearing because of conflicting psychiatric reports, one of which concluded that Leung posed a long-term threat to society and another which argued she did not.