A man has been jailed by a Chinese court for two years for neglecting his ageing father. A sentence that is unusually severe, for flouting the law obliging offspring to care for elderly parents.
His four sisters were handed suspended sentences for ignoring their dad, a court in China’s southwestern Sichuan province wrote on its official social media account last week.
The family in question, lived and worked near the village where their father, Zhang shared a home with his wife.
In 2010, the last child left, citing her father’s bad temper, the court wrote. She took her mother with her when she moved, leaving the man who was aged in his 70s alone to fend for himself. When Zhang’s health started to deteriorate local authorities in the village tried to make contact with his family in an attempt to get them to care for him. However, these attempts were ignored.
In 2016, Zhang’s health began to rapidly deteriorate but even then his family made no attempt to help and as a result, village authorities decided to take the matter to court. However, it was too late for Zhang who “died a lonely death at home”, the court wrote. He died at the age of 80.
