Ng moved to the United States on a student visa in 1978 and studied biology at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California. Not long after arriving, Ng was expelled for stealing from other students and returned to Hong Kong. After his arrest for shoplifting at age 15, he went, at his father's insistence, to Bentham Grammar School, a boarding school in North Yorkshire, England.
As a teenager, he was described as a troubled loner and was expelled from several schools. As a child, Ng was harshly disciplined and abused by his father. Charles Ng was born in British Hong Kong, the youngest of three children and only son of a wealthy Hongkonger executive and his wife.
