A Sydney man who stabbed his wife to death in a "frenzied" attack after suffering months of insomnia was unable to control his actions due to mental illness, a court has heard.
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Mu Rong Hong, 64, faced a sentencing hearing at the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday after earlier pleading guilty to manslaughter over the fatal stabbing of his wife Mu Xia Hong, 57, at a Berala residence in November 2019.
"There's no explanation whatsoever except the mental illness for this tragedy after 30 years of apparently happy married life and care by her for him as his mental health obviously deteriorated in the opinion of the family," Hong's barrister Greg James SC told the court.
"His depressive symptoms caused him to distort events in his environment, perceive things in a more negative way and trigger an inappropriate response ... thus contributing to the offending."
The court heard that in April 2019 - around five months before the homicide - Hong's Westmead mixed business closed down and he subsequently developed insomnia for which he sought medication from a doctor.
When medication failed to help, Hong continued to suffer from the sleep condition and became at times frustrated, depressed and angry, the court was told.
It heard that the killing, in which the victim was stabbed multiple times, occurred during an altercation between Hong and his wife after a bad night of sleep.
Hong's moral culpability for the killing was low, Mr James argued, because mental illness meant he was unable to control his actions at the time.
"When he killed his wife even in what appears to be a frenzied attack, even if he was able to know what he was doing when he did it, to stop himself doing it was grossly impaired," the barrister said.
"Whatever it was that caused him to kill his wife appears it arose almost instantly during the altercation between him and her."
He said Hong had "expressed regret" for the killing to police and medical professionals, and was getting better at expressing it the more his mental condition settled.
Crown prosecutor Giles Tabuteau, in his submissions, accepted that Hong "lost control of himself" during the killing, which he submitted had its genesis in unsuccessfully treated insomnia following the closure of the business.
"This was a particular situation where the offender did have a depression, it undoubtedly was the thing which brought about the offence being committed," Mr Giles said.
However, he submitted that the act of violence Hong unleashed on his wife was not "completely without context or a certain logic", describing it as "not altogether inexplicable".
In comments to Hong's family, Justice Peter Hamill described the case as "extremely traumatic and tragic".
"There's nothing much more I can say," Justice Hamill said.
He adjourned the matter for sentence without fixing a date.
Australian Associated Press
