Peter "China" Lui and Kelly Cook. "He made me feel loved, safe and secure, and he treated me like his queen,” she said. Photo / Supplied
Peter "China" Lui and Kelly Cook. "He made me feel loved, safe and secure, and he treated me like his queen,” she said. Photo / Supplied
A widow berated a murderer, calling the Mongrel Mob member a coward, as she paid tribute to her dead husband.
Kelly Cook delivered one of several family victim impact statements to the court today which a judge said described “a world of anger and pain and grief”, as a 20-monthhomicide case drew to a close.
“You are nobody to me. There is no honour in what you did,” Cook told Hemi Rapata Meihana Cahill, the second of two men to be sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her husband, Peter “China” Lui.
“You should be embarrassed about how gutless you are,” she said, facing Cahill across the floor of the High Court at Napier.
Crown solicitor Steve Manning told the court it was the last day of legal hearings after a process of police investigations and court sittings that had spanned almost two years.
It began on March 29 last year when Cahill, now 31, in a maroon Holden Calais pursued Lui on his motorcycle through the streets of Napier.
Cahill and the car’s passenger, Belmont Sonny Freedom Eruiti Te Aonui-Tawhai, wanted to take the Outlaws Motorcycle Club patch that Lui was wearing. They were both Mongrel Mob members.
When Lui pulled up outside the gated Outlaws headquarters in Mersey Street, in the industrial Pandora district, Cahill twice drove into him with the car.
Te Aonui-Tawhai got out of the vehicle and stabbed Lui 13 times in the arms, face and hand when he was on the ground, and the pair took Lui’s patch.
“I’m struggling to breathe,” Lui told the first police officer on the scene. Despite efforts to save him, he died from blood loss a short time later.
Cahill and Te Aonui-Tawhai were charged months after Lui died.
Te Aonui-Tawhai made early guilty pleas to murder, assault and the aggravated robbery of Lui’s patch. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years.
Hemi Cahill at an earlier court appearance. Photo / NZME
Cahill pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery but elected trial by jury for charges of assault with a weapon and murder.
In July, a jury found Cahill guilty of the assault, but could not agree on a verdict for the murder charge.
A second trial had been scheduled for February next year, but Cahill pleaded guilty to the murder in the High Court in September after receiving a sentencing indication.
The court was told on Friday that he changed his mind and his plea after hearing the evidence given against him in the trial.
Justice Cheryl Gwyn sentenced Cahill to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 12 and a half years for the murder. He received lesser concurrent sentences for the robbery and assault.
Cook told the court that she and Lui, 63, whom she called China, had been together for 10 years and married for five, although she had known him all her life.
“China made me happy. He showed me love, loyalty and respect … He made me feel loved, safe and secure, and he treated me like his queen,” she said.
“Night after night, I will often sit up in bed and look at photos of China and I together.
“Then I start to look at him as he is lying in his coffin, and I zoom up and touch his sore face, and just cry and tell him that I’m so sorry that this happened to him, and tell him how much I miss him.
“I am haunted by the way China’s life was viciously taken from him. I feel so sorry for him. I think about all that he would have gone through.
“It replays over and over again in my head. He didn’t deserve this.”
Hundreds of motorcyclists, friends and family crowded Napier's Marine Parade for Peter Lui's funeral. Photo / NZME
Lui’s sister, son and daughter also read victim impact statements to the court, breaking down at times.
They described Lui, an electrician by trade, as a hard-working survivor of cancer who went the extra mile to help out friends and family.
Justice Gwyn said that Cahill had been using methamphetamine heavily for days before the attack, which happened at a tumultuous time for him and during his mother’s terminal illness.
He only realised the gravity of his offending when he detoxed from drugs after being taken into custody.
Members of both Lui’s and Cahill’s families were in the public gallery as the sentencing hearing progressed.
Defence counsel Eric Forster said that Cahill had taken part in a restorative justice meeting with members of his victim’s family – a rare occurrence for a homicide case.
After the hearing, Lui’s son, Michael Lui, issued a family statement which acknowledged police, Victim Support, ambulance and medical personnel, and members of the public who went to Lui’s aid immediately after the attack.
“We sincerely thank the courage of the witnesses who came forward, assisting police to make speedy progress in their investigations into Peter’s death.”
The statement also acknowledged that Lui had a lifelong association with a motorcycle club “and all that entailed”.
However, it said, “Peter was much more than that”.
“Our family has lost an irreplaceable member and we have all striven to honour Peter’s priorities of family, loyalty and doing your very best as we try to navigate a life without him.
“We are proud to claim him as our own and cherish the memories we have of our times together.
“To the two convicted of Peter’s murder, we hope that you take the time to reflect on your actions and that you can turn your life around with the support of your own families,” the statement said.
