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A life sentence was justified for two men convicted of the infamous Hello Kitty killing because they would continue to be a danger to society, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

When Chan Man-lok, 34, Leung Shing-cho, 27, and Leung Wai-lun, 21, were jailed for life in December 2000, Mr Justice Peter Nguyen said each exhibited a 'manifestly psychopathic tendency'' in the torture and killing of Fan Man-yee, 23.

The three men had denied murder but a Court of First Instance jury convicted them of manslaughter.

Leung Shing-cho recently won his bid to have his conviction overturned and faces a retrial on a date to be set.

The Court of Appeal  had heard submissions from Chan and Leung Wai-lun's counsel that the life sentence was manifestly excessive.

But Mr Justice Michael Stuart-Moore  yesterday found the case 'came very close to the line which divides murder and manslaughter''. He further found Mr Justice Nguyen had used the correct principles in assessing Chan and Leung as a continuing danger to society.

Mr Justice Stuart-Moore also found Chan and Leung had shown no mercy  throughout the protracted torture inflicted on Fan.

'In passing sentence, the judge extensively reviewed the evidence, highlighting a few of the incidents which brought home the true horror of [the three men's] behaviour, leading him to remark that he was unaware in recent years of any court being called upon to hear evidence of 'such cruelty, depravity, callousness, and brutality ... by human beings on another human being',' he said.

The Hello Kitty manslaughter case captured local and international media attention in 2001.

The court heard how Fan was held  in a Tsim Sha Tsui flat after she was involved in the theft of a wallet containing $4,000 from Chan.

The court heard the mother of a young son was beaten daily and subjected to humiliating assaults. Fan had drinking straws melted on to the soles of her feet, chilli oil poured on her wounds and she was strung up by the hands and left hanging for hours while being beaten with iron bars.

After her death, Fan's body was chopped up, dismembered and boiled. Her skull was stuffed in a Hello Kitty doll and her internal organs dumped on a shop canopy.



Appeal judge upholds life terms for 'merciless' Hello Kitty killers