Finn Blackwell of RNZ
How does a minor traffic accident lead to double murder?
That is what Crown prosecutors have put forward as their version of events in the trial of Lok Fung Lorrence Li.
Li is accused of murdering Fuk-Fu Joseph Kwok and his wife Mei Han Chong at their Ellerslie home in November 2023.
In the High Court at Auckland on Monday, Li entered guilty pleas through an interpreter to manslaughter, while pleading not guilty to murdering the couple.
Li also pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to murder another person, who has name suppression.
He had been charged alongside another man, Shu Man Poon, who jurors were told earlier admitted to his role in the murder.
Poon was expected to give evidence later in Li’s trial.
Prosecutor Harrison Bell gave jurors the Crown’s account of the night of the murder.
Kwok, who was a theatre nurse at Auckland’s North Shore Hospital, had arrived home from work late the night before the murder.
Two hours later, the Crown said Li along with Poon arrived in a car with a stolen license plate, went into the home, and attacked Kwok.
Kwok was shot with an air gun, and stabbed four times in the chest and once in the neck, killing him, Bell said.
Mei Han Chong who was also in the home was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, before being taken out to Greenhithe on the city’s North Shore, where her body was dumped, the Crown submitted.
“What possessed these men to act in such a violent way, killing two people?” Bell asked.
“The Crown says the answer begins with Mr Li.”
Bell said about 11 months earlier, Li and Kwok had been involved in a traffic accident.
Li was told by Kwok’s insurance that he was at fault, and the issue was taken to the Disputes Tribunal.
“The Crown says as a result of that grievance and having received the Kwok’s home address from disclosure received from the Disputes Tribunal proceedings, Mr Li decided to go to the Kwok’s address, intending to kill them, and he enlisted the assistance of Mr Poon in doing so,” Bell said.
Bell explained that Kwok was found by his son, who was expecting a visit from his parents in Hamilton.
“He entered the house, saw his father lying on the floor with the smell of death, as he describes it,” Bell said.
The trial was also expected to go through a conspiracy between Poon and Li to murder another person, going so far as to travel to her property and spray paint over the security cameras, before being interrupted by a vehicle on the street, Bell said.
Li had received an email from the Disputes Tribunal earlier that same day, with the Kwok’s address attached, he said.
“Mr Li’s murderous plan shifted at that point from [the person] to the Kwok’s, or to Mr Kwok and anyone else they might encounter in his house,” the Crown submitted.
It was the Crown’s case that Li was not a bystander in the murder, but in fact the instigator of the murders.
“It might be suggested to you that this was all Mr Poon and that Mr Li did not knowingly participate in making the plan or assist in any way with the killings of the Kwoks as alleged by the Crown,” Bell said.
“The evidence, once you’ve heard it all, you may agree, does not support that proposition.”
The Crown could not say which of the two men dealt the fatal blows to the Kwok’s, but did not need to, Bell said.
One of Li’s defence lawyer, Rosemary Thomson, told jurors what happened to the Kwok’s was a tragedy, that should never have happened.
“There is nothing that I’m going to say in my opening or indeed the defence is going to say throughout the trial which should in any way suggest otherwise,” she said.
She pointed the jury to Li’s guilty plea of manslaughter.
“Mr Li has taken responsibility for his actions and accepts that he played a role.”
Thomson said Li did not have the necessary intention to commit the murders.
“The trial will therefore proceed on the basis that it will be a matter for you whether the Crown can establish a murderous intent.”
Thomson urged jurors to keep an open mind.
“All trials have two sides,” she said.
“As judges, you need to keep an open mind until you have heard all of the evidence and the legal directions from Her Honour.
“It is only then you can start reaching some conclusions.”
The trial is set to hear from its first witnesses on Tuesday.
Manslaughter within murder
Li had entered guilty pleas on Monday morning to manslaughter for both of the victims, despite not having those charges read out in the courtroom.
Justice Jane Anderson explained to the jury that every murder charge included within it a charge of manslaughter.
She said murder had three elements, the killing of one person by another, that the killing was done by an unlawful act, and intent.
“Not all homicides are blame worthy,” she said.
“However, the criminal law intervenes when a homicide is caused by an unlawful act.”
For manslaughter to be murder, the Crown must prove beyond reasonable doubt a third element of intention, Justice Anderson said.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz
