Accused killed his father to escape abusive relationship, defence says

Lawyer asks jury to deliver manslaughter verdict instead of second-degree murder

Murder suspect Vincent Fong was in an abusive relationship with his father that he couldn't escape, his lawyer said Monday in seeking a manslaughter conviction.

But the prosecution countered Fong simply hated his dad and intentionally killed him.

Defence lawyer Katherin Beyak told an 11-member Calgary Court of King's Bench jury her client's intellectual deficiencies and mental-health problems left him incapable of escaping his abusive father's grip.

But Crown lawyer Margot Engley suggested Fong was no different than any children who don't like to be berated by their parents.

“In some ways he comes across as quite childlike,” Engley said, in urging jurors not to have sympathy for Fong in determining their verdict.

Fong, 41, is charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 9, 2019, death of his elderly father.

Shu Kwan (Ken) Fong, 70, died of multiple stab wounds after his son pushed him down a set of stairs inside the family's northwest Calgary home before repeatedly stabbing him.

The younger Fong admitted attempting to cut off his father's head to ensure he was dead.

Engley noted the accused also told jurors he wanted to hit his father when his dad berated him that afternoon.

“That doesn't seem to be the actions of somebody who is scared,” Engley said, of Fong's testimony that he feared his father.

But Beyak said her client endured years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father and had no way to escape him, even failing to find a way to move out of the family home.

“He finds himself in a situation that he could not get out of and so he responds by taking his dad's life,” she said.

Beyak said the decision for jurors is not to determine whether Fong killed his father, but whether he had the intention necessary for murder when he did so.

“We heard a lot of evidence ... about Vincent, about his dad, about his family situation and the horrific events of January 2019,” she said.

“We take no issue with the fact that obviously Vincent killed his father,” Beyak said.

“However, we would ask you ... that rather than finding him guilty of second-degree murder that you find him guilty of manslaughter.”

Beyak said Fong's autistic spectrum disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and mild intellectual deficiencies made him more susceptible to being victimized by his father.

She noted psychiatrist Dr. Oluyemisi Ajeh diagnosed her client as having complex post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the emotional and physical abuse he experienced at the hands of his father.

“Given Mr. Fong's difficulties that you've heard about ... coupled with the abusive situation that he found himself raised in, (I ask you to find) that he did not form the actual intent to commit murder,” Beyak said.

But Engley argued that, by pushing his father down the stairs, stabbing him and trying to decapitate him, Fong showed his sole intent was to kill the victim.

Jurors were to hear final instructions from Justice Paul Jeffrey before beginning deliberations late Monday afternoon.