‘Just wanted to scare him’: Chinese father who accidentally stabbed son to death with Japanese samurai sword in study argument gets 12 years’ jail
- A court in China found that Yang Junming used a Japanese samurai sword to jab his 13-year-old son, who later died in hospital after losing too much blood
- The attack happened after Yang was told about his son’s poor academic performance in an online meeting with a teacher
A single father in southwestern China has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for accidentally stabbing his teenage son to death after an attempt to motivate the boy to study harder went wrong.
A court in Mianyang, Sichuan province, found that Yang Junming used a Japanese samurai sword to jab his 13-year-old son who was immediately sent to a hospital but died after losing too much blood, Sichuan TV reported.
The attack happened after Yang had an online meeting with his son’s teacher on January 7, 2022.
At the meeting, Yang was told his son’s performance at school was poor. Yang claimed his son had low academic scores and received a mark of 18 out of 100 on a physical education test. After the meeting, Yang confronted his son, accusing him of “being too lazy and not studying hard”.
According to Yang, his son replied: “You always blame me for not being diligent, but I have already studied hard enough”.
Yang told the court that in response, “I became so furious that I picked up a Japanese samurai sword and stepped forward to stab him”.
The boy’s waist was cut by the sword, leaving a 10cm-long wound.
Yang said he immediately called an ambulance which arrived 10 minutes later. The boy was sent to a nearby hospital. However, despite two hours of emergency surgery, doctors declared the boy dead.
“I just wanted to scare him,” Yang told the police afterwards. “I did the worst thing out of the best motivation.”
He said he bought the sword from an online store as he was interested in collecting samurai blades.
Yang and the boy’s mother divorced several years ago after he had cheated on her. He remained single after the divorce and lived alone with his son, of whom he had high expectations, Yang told the court.
Forensic examinations found the boy had other, older injuries, revealing that he had been beaten multiple times before his death.
The case has attracted widespread criticism of the father on the mainland.
“Using a Japanese samurai sword to scare a child? There’s something wrong with this guy’s mind,” said one person on Weibo.
