Crime and Punishment: You be the Judge

Some time ago, I came across this story in the newspapers and it instantly grabbed my attention as the headline read “Woman cuts off boyfriend’s penis before beating him to death with hammer”. You can see why I was intrigued by this story but as I read on, something else grabbed my attention and it is something that has troubled me on occasion before. I find that the more you pay attention to the news, the more you realize that there is seemingly a great imbalance within the scales of justice.

So, let me give you a quick break down of the story as I understand it – I have read it from three different sources and they all say the same thing, so hopefully I can assume it’s all true – just to get us all up to speed.

Yeung Ki, a Chinese national, drugged her ex-boyfriend, Zhou Hui, with a sedative-laced soup and proceeded to cut off his penis, using a pair of scissors, before flushing it down the toilet. When he fought back, she beat him to death with a hammer. The coroner’s report actually described it as an “almost uncountable” number of blows to the face and the back of his head.

Now, I’m sure that your first question upon reading this is the same as mine and it’s a simple one: why? What would drive a person to do that because surely, nobody would do that without being provoked – although in some cases this is just something we say with hope that humanity isn’t as dark and depraved as we know it can be. So, let me give you the rest of the story and fill in the blanks.

Zhou, disappeared from Yeung’s life after borrowing HK$19,000 from her. At the time, Yeung was pregnant and when she finally tracked him down she found out that he was married and he wanted nothing to do with the child. He told her to abort the child, she refused and this is where they cease contact for a few years. It is reported that one day, after being out of the scene for four years, he turned up at her apartment and demanded HK$28,000 from her so that he could buy a new car – remember, this is the same guy who already owes her money – and when she refused he is said to have threatened her with an intent to post naked pictures of her online if she did not give him HK$200,000. (This particular part I am not so sure about because some sources say he attempted to get that amount of money from her while others simply say he tried to blackmail her with the pictures but doesn’t make mention of the money.) At this point in the story, I am a little confused because if you try to get 28,000 from a person and they say no, why would you think you would have a better chance of getting a larger sum from them? But, I must say, the man strikes me as a bit of an idiot so perhaps he really did think things would play out this way. I digress.

Yeung refused to give him the money and so Zhou, I guess attempting to use the pain of seeing someone you love being hurt, began to beat their daughter. Yes. The daughter he tried to have Yeung abort. The daughter he had only seen for the first time that night. And, as if this wasn’t bad enough, when Yeung tried to intervene, Zhou turned his attention to her before beating her too and raping her. Now, I know they say we shouldn’t take the law into our own hands and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind but let me tell you something, if you beat my child and then rape me I am going to delete you from the face of this earth. Standard procedure. This man gave up the right to be treated like a human and in the animal kingdom, is it not kill or be killed? Adapt or perish. He brought this situation upon himself and I guess he made the mistake of thinking that he could just push this woman around and take advantage of her the way he clearly had done in the past, without any repercussion but he swiftly found out he was wrong.

The strangest thing about it is the drug-laced soup. Remember I said the guy strikes me as a bit of an idiot? Well please tell me, who in their right mind would attack a woman’s child before attacking and raping said woman and after all that shit you have done to her think, oooh what’s that? You’re cooking? Soup? Yeeeeah, give me some of that. (Obviously, these were not likely his exact words but you know…) If you harm someone and then accept food from them, you’re just asking for problems and let us not forget the saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. Scorned she certainly was and in my honest opinion, he deserved every single thing she did to him. Every heavy hammer blow to the face, every crushing crack to the head and of course the cutting off of his penis. And here is where my problem begins, Yeung Ki on trial for murder. Should she be though? Sure, she killed him, and she admits that, but should she be trialed as a murderer and should she be sentenced for it? Wouldn’t it be an injustice to do that, seeing as she has already brought balance to the scales by punishing this poor excuse for a human being for what he did to her?

If you do something wrong, you should be punished for it and you could argue that whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” thing but then you have to ask yourself, isn’t that exactly the nature of the justice system? Punishment for a crime. And the justice system seems to get it wrong far too often, so how much faith could one really hope to have in the law? The way I see it is, she has done the world a favour. A person like that doesn’t deserve to live. I am hoping this woman isn’t sentenced but sadly, the likelihood is, she will be.

Where is the justice in that?

If you were the Judge what would you do? Comment below