Boy died in terrible revenge, jury hears

When Auckland University academic Hua Dai withdrew support for her estranged husband's residency application, he extracted a terrible revenge, a jury in the High Court at Auckland heard yesterday.

Resentful that he had given up a good career in the Chinese Army and forced to do menial jobs in New Zealand, Zhen Huan Li brooded about his situation.

The prosecution said on the night of September 4 last year, Li launched a "merciless" assault with a metal table leg on his wife and his 10-year-old stepson, Wenda Zeng.

The boy, who was struck at least eight powerful blows, survived eight days before his life support was turned off.

His mother, whose life was in the balance for some time, underwent brain surgery and survived.

Li, 41, faces charges of murdering the boy and attempting to murder the child's mother.

In a brief preliminary address, defence counsel Peter Kaye said that Li was guilty of at least manslaughter.

The issue for the jury was Li's state of mind at the time of the incident at Hua Dai's Birkenhead address.

Earlier, Crown prosecutor Aaron Perkins described Li as a man full of self-pity and anger, who wanted revenge on his wife.

"Instead of getting on with his life, he vented his self pity by resorting to lethal violence," he said.

Mr Perkins described how the marriage deteriorated to the point where Hua Dai, an academic doing her PhD and who had been granted residency under the skills immigration category, withdrew her sponsorship of Li's application for New Zealand residency.

From having a good career as an officer in the Chinese Army, Li was reduced to working in restaurants and as a storeman.

Mr Perkins said thoughts of revenge had been going through Li's head before the incident.

He allegedly told a friend a couple of days before the killing: "I actually planned to kill Hua Dai and Wenda on Wednesday. I was going to use an iron leg from a table.

"I was going to kill the son in front of her."

Mr Perkins said that Hua Dai remembered being on the phone after a church meeting at her unit when she saw Li and her son come downstairs.

Wenda was crying. Li had called for her to turn around and she remembered him bringing the table leg on her head.

She recalled hearing her son call out for help but, Mr Perkins said, did not remember seeing her son being struck, perhaps blocking out what she witnessed.

The next day Li told police he had suffered a "temporary loss of control."

He spoke of having given up everything in China and how Hua Dai had twice withdrawn her sponsorship for his immigration application.

He said there was an argument that night because he had been left no dinner and his stepson monopolised the shower.

He became extremely angry and hit Hua Dai on the head with the table leg because he thought she was calling the police. He said that he hit his stepson with the table leg when he attacked him with something.

The trial continues today.