A thug who killed a student by stomping on his head in an argument over a girl has been jailed for eleven years.
Shengliang Wan, 24, savagely beat 19-year-old Jeremy Hu during a late-night fight in Melbourne’s Chinatown in April 2016.
Mr Hu suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. He died in hospital a week later.
Jeremy Hu (left with his parents) was killed during a late-night fight in Melbourne’s Chinatown in April 2016
Mr Hu (pictured) suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain and died in hospital
Mr Hu’s shattered mother was in floods of tears as she left the Melbourne Supreme Court with a friend this morning
‘Life has been a torture for us,’ Mr Hu’s mother, Liping Yuan (pictured today), said in a statement. ‘No matter how hard we call him, our child can no longer hear us’
Wan was found guilty of manslaughter and today jailed for eleven years with a chance of parole after seven.
In sentencing, Justice Stephen Kaye said the killer exhibited a ‘high degree of wanton violence’.
‘Your actions in throwing Hu to the ground and stomping on him were totally unwarranted,’ he said.
‘Hu was entirely defenceless, vulnerable and at your mercy.’
There was an initial altercation between Mr Hu and Wan’s friend, but Wan, 24, began attacking the teenager after his friend complained of an injury. Pictured: CCTV footage from Chinatown on the night of the attack
Mr Hu’s shattered mother was in floods of tears as she left the Melbourne Supreme Court with a friend this morning.
The brawl was triggered because a friend of Wan’s became jealous over a girl.
There was an initial altercation between Mr Hu and Wan’s friend, but Wan began attacking the teenager after his friend complained of an injury.
Mr Hu was lying helpless on the ground when Wan forcefully stomped on and kicked his head, chief Crown prosecutor Brendan Kissane QC said.
‘The attack on Jeremy was vicious, brutal and senseless,’ he said.
Footage showed Wan, who had been studying commerce at RMIT, steady himself on a wall before delivering the final two blows.
Wan was very loyal to his friend and had spent the week before consoling him over girl troubles, defence barrister John Kelly SC said.
Mr Hu was lying helpless on the ground when Wan forcefully stomped on and kicked his head. Pictured: CCTV footage from Chinatown on the night of the attack
Mother of Jeremy Hu, Liping Yuan (left) leaves the Melbourne Supreme Court with a friend today
Wan had expressed concern for Mr Hu after the attack and went to the teenager’s hotel room, Mr Kelly said.
‘There was nothing to indicate, in the way he was raised or educated, that he had any anti-social traits, that he had any propensity for violence,’ Mr Kelly told Justice Stephen Kaye.
Mr Hu’s mother, Liping Yuan said in court earlier this month: ‘Life has been a torture for us. No matter how hard we call him, our child can no longer hear us.’
Shouting across the court room at Wan in Mandarin, she said: ‘A life for a life – murder is a death penalty in China.’
Mr Hu, a Yarra Valley Grammar student, was bright and handsome, and enjoyed basketball and piano, she said.
His parents, who are from China, had made arrangements to join him in Australia, but were forced to leave suddenly when he died, leading to the liquidation of their assets and near-bankruptcy, Ms Yuan said.
‘This monster has destroyed the happiness of our whole family,’ she said in her statement.
CCTV footage shows the scene in Chinatown when Mr Hu was attacked. He suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain