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The “childlike” Calgary man convicted of murdering his elderly father will face a sentencing hearing next month.
Student-at-law Mackenzie McCaffrey appeared in Calgary Court of King’s Bench Friday on behalf of defence counsel Katherin Beyak to schedule a half-day sentencing hearing for Vincent Fong on May 1.
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McCaffrey told Justice Glen Poelman that Beyak had been in touch with the court’s trial co-ordinator to schedule the hearing to determine the length of Fong’s parole ineligibility.
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“A date for sentencing has been obtained and that date, sir, is May 1,” McCaffrey said.
She asked that Poelman issue a judge’s order for Fong’s attendance before Justice Paul Jeffrey to hear submissions from the defence and Crown prosecutor Margot Engley.
Fong, 41, was convicted on March 4 of second-degree murder, when jurors rejected Beyak’s submission her client was in an abusive relationship that he couldn’t escape when he killed his father, Shu Kwan (Ken) Fong, 70.
The lawyer had argued that would reduce her client’s culpability and he should only have been convicted of manslaughter.
Beyak told an 11-member jury her client’s intellectual difficulties and mental health problems, which included severe autism, left him incapable of escaping his abusive father’s grip.
But Engley, in seeking a second-degree murder conviction, 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,” she said, in urging jurors not to have sympathy for Fong in determining their verdict.
On the afternoon of Jan. 9, 2019, Fong pushed his father down a set of stairs in the family’s northwest Calgary home before repeatedly stabbing him after being scolded by the deceased.
Beyak said Fong’s autism spectrum disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and mild intellectual deficiencies made him more susceptible to being victimized by his father.
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