Terrible   fathers  (Part 1)

Approximately three-quarters of the children in the world have decent and caring fathers. The other quarter of the children have fathers who are terrible fathers. Alas, I was one of those unfortunate children whose father was a real cad. He raped my mother on a date and I was conceived as a result of that rape. He abandoned us many times, rarely paid support for my mother, my younger brother and me. When I was eleven, my father raped me, (Yes—boys can be raped by men) and then he deserted us forever right after that. I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that he never beat my brother and I and he only assaulted my mother twice although once is too many times.

That was the extent of his conduct. There are however terrible fathers who are far worse than my father ever was. In this article, I am going to tell you about one of them.

His name was William Si Cheng

Zhou “Peter” Fang and his mother Nora Fang suffered graphic abuse and degradation that is much too obscene and depraved for any Hollywood script.

William” Si Cheng tormented his son Peter Fang since he was a crying as a one-month-old baby. Fang was pinched on the cheek as a one-month-old by his father and when his mom intervened, Cheng attacked her. Later when Peter was older, his father poured urine on his son, forced him to eat his own vomit and eat fish from the garbage and on one occasion, he choked the child while the child was sleep.

His father twisted the heads off Peter’s pet birds as punishment for his son making a charitable donation at school. Cheng threatened to kill or cut out his wife’s and son’s tongues — and he chopped off a rabbit’s tongue in their presence to emphasize the point if they divulged their torturous lives.

Both Peter and his mother were sexually abused by this evil twisted man. When the mother was being sexually assaulted, the young son tried to save her but Cheng punished him by choking him.

Peter and his mom were beaten without reason, and the son was once confined to a bedroom and forced to urinate in a bottle. Then the father poured the urine on his son’s head. One day Peter’s mother was so viciously beaten by Cheng that she stopped working as a Toronto teacher. She was temporarily blinded by the attack at the hands of her abusive husband.

The family moved to Vancouver in 1997 where Peter was choked in his sleep. His father was charged but Cheng moved his family to Australia when Peter was ten years old before the courts could deal with that latest violence. They returned to Toronto in 1998 where Peter was ordered to sleep on a board and urinate in a bowl on the floor at night.

Cheng was repeatedly charged, convicted, given minor sentences and intimidated his hostage family members to convince authorities that he “had changed,” the  court heard. I blame the court judges for not taking a firmer stand when it became obvious that the abuse continued.

Cheng even assaulted Peter’s maternal grandmother resulting in her pelvis and vertebrae being fractured. Nora Fang described an incident at midnight May 4, 2002, in which Cheng pulled his wife, then 42, and son, then 15, from their beds into the kitchen, where he declared himself master of the family and told his son not to call his maternal grandmother “Grandma” any more.

“Our son trembled in fear,” she wrote in a court document. After Cheng went to bed, she wrote, “Canada is a democratic country; everybody here should have equal rights and respect each other.” She then stuck the words to the kitchen wall.

The next day, Cheng found the two lines on the wall. He immediately tore the paper off the wall and violently attacked her. She cried for help and Peter tried to call the authorities. When Cheng noticed this, he ran quickly towards him. His mother later said that she tried to intervene, but Cheng beat her again. Her elderly mother, Dian Xun Xiong, begged him to stop so he pushed her down, breaking her shin bone.

Peter then jumped out of the home’s second-story window, causing multiple fractures, but he still managed to call police. His mother, grandmother and he were all rushed to hospital. When they were released from the hospital, they never returned to the home again. Cheng and Fang’s 17-year marriage — which featured abuse dating back to their days in China — collapsed after the May 2002 assaults.

Peter had witnessed ongoing and severe instances of domestic violence committed by his father against his mother. Aside from Cheng being convicted of abuse against the pair on numerous occasions, there is a significant history of police and Children’s Aid Society intervention. It is beyond all understanding as to why the people at the Children’s Aid Society didn’t rescue Peter. But then we always have known that such organizations like that have twits working for them.

Cheng was ordered to pay his estranged wife $500,000 for years of physical abuse. As to be expected, he didn’t pay any of the money to his wife.

Although the physical abuse ceased in 2002, Fang and his mother relocated to Ottawa where the pair constantly lived in fear that Cheng would find and kill them.  Peter at various times thought he saw his father in Ottawa. Whether Cheng was ever in Ottawa isn’t known, but the two alleged sightings undoubtedly felt very real to him so he lived in fear while living in Ottawa.  

Fang and his mother wore bullet-proof jackets and Kevlar SWAT fire hoods at home, fearing Cheng might set fire to their residence. Peter hired private investigators, wrote to the Queen and Governor General for help, and acquired weapons, including the crossbow.

Fang’s fear peaked in late 2010, when he travelled by bus from Ottawa to Toronto, rented a U-Haul van, and entered the Main Street library with a crossbow, pepper spray and hammer during the afternoon of December 2^nd 2010.

“By the time the crossbow and crossbow bolt were purchased, he had considered using it offensively and not just defensively,” wrote the psychiatrist who later assessed Peter’s motive for killing his father.

In a handwritten apology that Sandler, his lawyer later read to court, Peter stated he was “totally convinced” that his “lifelong tormenter” was “bent on killing me and my mother.” He shot the crossbow bolt into his father’s back and then crushed his father’s head with the hammer until his abusive father was dead.

Zhou Fang, now 26, was charged with first-degree murder of Si Cheng, 52, after the shocking afternoon incident on December 2, 2010, inside the Main Street Library branch however, the crown attorney (prosecutor) was sympathetic and permitted him to plead guilty to the lessor charge of second-degree murder.

The Crown attorney, Mike Callaghan accepted Peter’s plea to the lesser offence after considering that he had been the subject of “long term and horrible abuse at the hands of his father.” That’s not to suggest the Crown finds the abuse “in any way justifies the murder or the unlawfulness of it,” Callaghan said, adding the seriousness of Fang’s conduct is reflected in the mandatory life sentence he faces. If he was convicted of first degree murder, he would be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison before he would be eligible to apply for parole. However, if he is convicted of second degree murder (and he will be since he has pleaded guilty to that charge) he could also be sentenced to the same amount of years in prison however, the judge can choose to sentence him to the minimum sentence available in that particular charge to only ten years in prison before he can apply for parole.

During Peter’s trial, senior forensic psychiatrist Dr. Hy Bloom described the Fangs’ abuse case as “one of the worst and most chronic child and spousal abuse scenarios he has ever encountered.” He outlined 22 pages of “the most extreme, physical, emotional abuse” heaped upon both Fang and his mom.

The psychiatrist said in his report that Peter still suffers from chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but a psychiatric assessment indicated he’s “not predisposed to violence towards others” or criminal behaviour in general. He feared for his and his mother’s life up until December 2, 2010 when he killed their tormentor.

From the time he was a baby, “Fang was the victim of deprivation, beatings and what can only be described as psychological torture,” Crown attorney Jessica Smith-Joy said, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

A senior forensic psychiatrist who assessed Fang described the abuse as “one of the worst and most chronic child abuse (and spousal abuse) scenarios” he had encountered. He concluded that Peter suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Both the Crown and Peter`s lawyer are asking the judge to impose a parole ineligibility period of 10 years even though the maximum is 25 years. Peter will be sentenced September 4^th. I honestly believe that he will only be sentenced to a minimum sentence of ten years before he will be eligible to apply for parole.

One good thing came out of all of this. That horrible animal was finally put down.  What is really sad about what happened to Peter, his mother and grandmother was that no one really came to their aid. The police made no real effort to protect them. With the help of the police, Peter and his mother and grandmother could have been located elsewhere under different names so that the animal couldn’t track them down. 

The soft-headed judges with their fingers up their butts only chastised that horrible man instead of sending him away to prison for a very long time. The Children’s aid was no better. They sat on their butts with their eyes closed and really did nothing for the family.

I wish it was possible for Peter to be released sooner than having to serve the full ten-year minimum but unfortunately, the law doesn’t permit that to happen. I do believe however that within a year of his sentencing, he will probably be serving his sentence in a minimum security prison.

I hope his grandmother and mother are still alive when he is finally released. If so, it will be a great moment in their lives for he will be free to join them. Peter having achieved what they always wanted in their lives will get to share it with his loved ones—peace and tranquility without fear.