Two police officers who tried to help a woman recover her child from her estranged husband lost her in traffic and later found her dying from stab wounds.
The constables were giving evidence in the trial in the High Court at Auckland of Jia-Chun Hu, who is accused of murdering his former wife, Jian Huang, at her New Lynn townhouse on February 26.
Constables Fagaesea Siaki and Alayne Hamlin were directed separately by the police communications centre to the closed New Lynn police station about 3 pm that day to meet Jian Huang, who was waiting outside with her boyfriend.
Constable Hamlin said Jian Huang told her that she had a protection order against Hu, and that he had taken her 5-year-old son.
The constable called the communications centre on her radio to check that the protection order was in place and to find out its conditions before picking up the boy.
She said staff at the centre could not find the order at first, as they were checking under the wrong name.
Eventually they found a record of it on computer, but the order itself was held at the Avondale police station.
Constable Hamlin said she asked the communications centre to check Hu's criminal history, and there was none. "I asked her if he was capable of being violent and her answer was, 'He wouldn't like police'."
After Constable Siaki arrived, they agreed to travel to Jian Huang's home in Ambrico Place in convoy, park away from the property and walk to it together to collect the protection order.
Constable Siaki told the court that before they left, Jian Huang's cellphone rang and the display showed it was her former husband calling.
"I said to her to be calm and speak to the other person on the phone, to not let him know the police were with her, and just find out where the son was."
After speaking on the phone in her own language, Jian Huang told Constable Siaki that Hu had demanded $30,000 for the return of the boy, and that if police were involved, he would kill the child.
The policeman understood Hu was at his own home in the same complex.
Constable Siaki said Jian Huang's boyfriend did not want Hu to see him and asked to travel in a police car.
Jian Huang did not want to leave her car at the police station, "so we thought it would be all right if we just followed in line."
"I was the second vehicle ... Coming out of Todd Ave, there is a 'Give Way'. I gave way to a number of cars. Meanwhile, [Jian Huang's] vehicle had gone ahead and I lost sight of her."
When the two patrol cars arrived in Ambrico Place, less than 2km away, the officers saw Jian Huang's car but no sign of her.
Constable Siaki said that asking Jian Huang to wait away from her home was "just a precaution, a domestic policy really. It was for her own safety."
He said the boyfriend called Jian Huang on her cellphone. When she answered, the boyfriend immediately told police that she was in trouble.
As Constable Siaki ran towards the house, he could hear "full-on, hard-core screaming." The doors were locked so he entered through a rear window.
Constable Siaki said he yelled, "Stop - police," and the screaming stopped. He went upstairs into a lounge and saw two legs sticking out into a kitchen area. Moving closer, he saw a man straddling Jian Huang. He identified the man in court as Hu.
He told Hu to get off but he did not move. Constable Siaki hit him twice with a baton, and when he still would not get off, dragged him away.
Constable Siaki said he handcuffed the man and lay him face-down on the kitchen floor. The man stared at Jian Huang and kept saying something to her in his own language.
The two officers tended to the dying woman. "We were trying to give her hope - willing her to live," said Constable Hamlin.
Cross-examined by defence counsel Steve Cullen, Constable Siaki said it was correct that the boyfriend had suggested Hu might be outside Jian Huang's home when they arrived. He agreed that nothing in Jian Huang's demeanour had suggested an imminent threat to her.
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