Bashing ‘not a beat-up’

themercury.com.au

Court Reporter

A CHEMISTRY PhD student had “very poor” vision after he was allegedly assaulted by two of his housemates, a court has heard.

Xinyi Li, 25, and Xin Wang, 27, have pleaded not guilty to assaulting Liang Chen at their Blackmans Bay home in July last year. Mr Li has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of

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perverting justice. Ophthalmologist Zoe Gao told a Supreme Court jury in Hobart yesterday that she assessed Mr Chen in July last year.

Dr Gao said Mr Chen told her that he heard a knock on his bedroom door, opened it and was assaulted.

“He claimed that he was punched to the left brow and eye region. He told me his housemates had done this,” she said.

Dr Gao said Mr Chen’s visual acuity when she saw him in July last year was “very poor”. She said he had 6/60 vision at that time.

“Anything less than 6/60 is considered legally blind,” she said.

Dr Gao said Mr Chen’s injuries were consistent with him having been assaulted.

She said Mr Chen’s vision did improve, but did not reach the normal level of 6/6 vision.

Under cross-examination by defence barrister Garth Stevens, Dr Gao said she did not have any information about Mr Chen’s visual acuity before July last year.

A WeChat post Mr Chen made before he was allegedly assaulted has been translated into English and tendered as evidence.

The jury heard the post included comments about being at a conference “only to return to a noisy home where I can’t sleep”. It then included the letters MDDZZ, which translator Lin Zhou said did not mean anything to her.

Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Chen told the jury on Tuesday that the letters “didn’t really mean anything”.

Mr Chen denied Mr Stevens’ suggestions that he wanted a romantic relationship with Ms Wang and that he “didn’t like” Mr Li, who had formed a close relationship Wang.

He also told Mr Stevens it was “nonsense” to suggest he and Mr Li were punching each other and Ms Wang was trying to separate them.

“Ms Wang was trying to grab me so that Mr Li can beat me,” Mr Chen said.

“It’s Mr Li and Ms Wang, they were beating me up.”

The trial, before Justice Michael Brett, continues. with

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