Chungaung Piao: Man who killed sex worker Ting Fang loses appeal

A MAN who killed a Sydney sex worker by slitting her throat and bashing her with her own stiletto shoe has lost a bid to have his conviction overturned.

Chungaung Piao was found guilty of murdering Ting Fang, whose body was found in a room at Adelaide’s Grand Chancellor Hotel on New Year’s Day, 2015.

The Court of Criminal Appeal unanimously rejected his bid to overturn the conviction on Thursday ordering Piao to continue to serve his minimum 25-year jail sentence.

Piao, who owned a cleaning business and was married with a young son, was Ms Fang’s final client but did not have enough money to pay for her services. CCTV footage had shown him running from the hotel on the night of her death. In sentencing in the Supreme Court Justice David Lovell described the murder as “brutal and opportunistic”.

The judge said there was no evidence the crime was premeditated and Piao’s motive was unclear but there was money missing from the room. He said Piao’s bank accounts had been overdrawn and he had owed money to someone who had allegedly threatened him.

“This was a vicious and senseless crime,” Justice Lovell said.

“A young lady who did you no harm senselessly murdered.”

Piao had appealed on the grounds that his conviction was unsound on the evidence presented and particularly objected to the admission of text messages sent and received by the dead woman.

But the appeal court found the trial judge had not erred and that, on the whole of the evidence, it was open to the jury to conclude that Piao was guilty.

During Piao’s trial in May 2016, the jury heard he owned a cleaning business and was threatened over a $3000 debt.

A single-edged razor blade was used to murder Ms Pang, and was found in the basin in the room’s ensuite bathroom, Prosecutor Tim Preston told the jury.

She was also hit with her stiletto at least nine times and sustained cuts to her forehead.

The Advertiser reported Mr Preston told the court Ms Fang was wrapped in bedsheets, with her windpipe and main two arteries severed.

The court also heard Piao wanted to extend his booking with Ms Fang extended firstly by one hour and then overnight. He planned to leave about 6am the next morning, on New Year’s Day, and promised to pay the $3000 debt

Mr Preston told the court Piao’s fingerprint was found on the bottom of Ms Fang’s shoe.

Ms Fang’s “adopted brother” was one of the last of her friends to hear from her. She was trying to encourage him to go out in Sydney for New Year’s Eve.

The Advertiser reports the friend told the court they were close and he called her “sister” and wrote messages to each other on social media before she met her fate in the hotel room.

“I just wished her a happy New Year, she asked me where I had gone,” he told jurors during Piao’s trial.

“I said ‘sleeping at home’ and ‘I don’t know, I’m being lazy, I don’t want to go out’.

“She didn’t ever reply.”

During her death, Fang was on a four-day trip to Adelaide from Sydney with the escort agency she worked for.

A man who was employed by the escort agency as a minder told the court he had to pick up sex workers from the airport, take them to their hotel and make sure they had toiletries and food.

“Different girls came for different times, normally three days ... some would come from a Monday to Wednesday, others would start on Wednesday ... there was an overlap,” he told the court.

Ms Fang went by the name of “Honey” and The Advertiser reports she would charge $350 an hour, $600 for two hours and $1500 for an overnight stay.

— with AAP

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