A Hong Kong father who slapped and shaken his newborn daughter - who remains on life support - on several occasions was jailed for six years and four months on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
Chung Kei Yuen, 26, assaulted his newborn daughter on three different occasions in December 2016 - he slapped and shaken her multiple times out of anger after he had his sleep interrupted by the infant.
The infant was immediately sent to the hospital after the mother saw her husband searching for Shaken Baby Syndrome, a serious brain injury caused by forcefully and violently shaking an infant, on the web.
"The day she turned a month old was the day she was sent to hospital for cardiopulmonary resuscitation," Justice Anthea Pang Po-Kam said in a statement (as cited by South China Morning Post). At the time, the newborn only weighed 6.17lbs (2.8kg).
Despite that, Chung Kei Yuen's defense counsel, Paul Leung Po-Sang, had contended in mitigation that his client had been under a lot of stress lately - the father primarily takes care of the baby, while working long shifts in a kitchen at the same time. The baby's mother, on the other hand, allegedly spent most of her time online.
However, Justice Anthea Pang Po-Kam maintained that the damage Chung Kei Yuen inflicted on his own daughter was "no different from claiming her life." The latter also admitted previously that he rarely held his daughter.
As of now, the infant remains in critical condition in hospital. She rely on life support to help her breathe while receiving medications through tubes.
This is not the first time a parent was convicted for vigorously shaking a baby. According to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, there are more than 1,300 reported cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome in the United States every year and about 25 percent of those result in death.
Approximately 80 percent of surviving victims, on the other hand, suffered from lifelong disabilities. This apparently include behavior disorders, seizures, cerebral palsy, vision problems or blindness, hearing and speech issues, serious brain injury, and permanent disability.
That being said, family members of the victims has spoken out about the effects of Shaken Baby Syndrome. One of which is Mrs. Bonita Tate whose daughter was shaken by a family member in 1995, when she was almost two-month-old baby. While her daughter survived it, the traumatic incident left her non-verbal and disabled, according to Action News Jax.
