Daughter tells of devastation over dad’s loss

THE daughter of murdered Nelson Cheung told of her agony in a moving witness impact statement. This is an extract: Since the day I learned of the horrendous crime against my father more than two years ago, I have been dreaming about the days these criminals would stand trial for their acts and be brought to justice, and the day on which this ‘victim impact’ statement would be read. Do you have a daughter? If you do, then you would have the privilege of experiencing that special bond shared between a father and his little girl. Then perhaps you would understand what’s gone from my world since that evening and the love and respect I had for my father. To me, my father was not the ‘Nelson Cheung’ that you read or hear about in the newspapers. He was my rock, my beacon, my protector and the voice of wisdom as I was growing up. I will never forget how he cared for me, the warmth I felt as a child when he held my hand, how he taught me to stand up for myself, to believe in myself and that I can be whatever I want to be. In the same year of his death, I got engaged. My older brother’s first child, my father’s first grandchild, was born. My wedding took place the following year. This year, my first child, my father’s second grandchild, was born. My father never got the chance to enjoy his retirement that he looked so much forward to, nor to walk his only daughter down the aisle, nor to enjoy his grandchildren. He was stabbed 17 times and bled to death in a road-side ditch in the dark cold night, in fear and panic. It pains me to think about his thoughts and emotions in the last moments of his life as he laid there on the ground, watching a stranger holding a knife to his wife while his own life was slipping away. Robbed of the happy memories of my father at my wedding or playing with my child, I have instead forever in my mind images of my father’s lifeless body lying on the cold autopsy table and in his coffin. No little girl should ever see her father like this. I am sad that he’s been taken away from me so early. I am even more sad about the way in which he was taken away. He should have left this world in his own bed surrounded by his loved ones, not in a roadside ditch in the cold like an animal. I have given up hoping I will wake up one day and it’s nothing but a nightmare.