Hong Kong doctor jailed for killing woman in beauty treatment mishap loses appeal against conviction
- Doctor had appealed on grounds original trial judge had prejudiced her case with unfair instructions to jury
- But panel of judges ruled instructions were ‘entirely fair’ and jury was correct in finding her guilty
A Hong Kong doctor jailed for killing a woman during a beauty treatment has lost an appeal against her conviction, with a court ruling the trial jury was correct in finding her guilty following “entirely fair and balanced” directions by the original judge.
Dr Mak Wan-ling, 40, was one of three defendants found guilty of manslaughter over the death of 46-year-old Chan Yuen-lam, who received experimental injections from Mak developed by her employer, DR Group, in 2012.
Three Court of Appeal judges on Wednesday unanimously dismissed Mak’s request to set aside her conviction, which landed her in jail for 3½ years after a retrial in 2020, as they found none of her grounds for appeal reasonable.
Mak was unanimously convicted by a nine-member jury in the retrial, three years after a different High Court jury failed to reach a verdict in her case despite finding her two co-defendants guilty of the same charge in 2017.
The deceased was among three women who fell seriously ill after receiving contaminated blood products – promoted as a way to improve immunity – from Mak at one of DR Group’s 38 beauty clinics.
In the appeal hearing last October, the defence argued errors made by trial judge Madam Justice Judianna Barnes had led to an unsafe conviction.
Peter Duncan SC, Mak’s leading counsel, sought to attack the judge’s direction to jurors in which she drew a line distinguishing an ordinary breach of duty of care from one so “exceptionally bad and reprehensible” that it amounted to gross negligence and warranted criminal sanctions.
