Wife ‘suffered’, says witness

A family member broke down while describing the strained relationship between the couple at the centre of a murder trial in Nelson.

‘‘She suffered a lot,’’ said the tearful man, whose name is suppressed, giving evidence on the third day of the trial in the High Court at Nelson.

Yanyan Meng, 62, was found dead at the Rutherford Hotel last April, and her husband Bin Jiang, 64, has been charged with her murder. The Chinese-born Swiss couple were on holiday in New Zealand.

The family member gave evidence on Wednesday morning via video link from the United States. He said Meng would sometimes get headaches and be in a bad mood due to stress, and this led to conflict with Jiang.

The couple often argued, and sometimes this included physical contact, he said. When Meng got stressed, she would start ‘‘ranting’’, usually directed at Jiang, but would then take medication, calm down and say she was very unhappy.

The witness said Meng had spoken to him about wanting a divorce, but he didn’t think she had pursued it because divorce was not culturally acceptable in China.

He said the couple had different ideas about how they wanted to spend their retirement, which was also a source of tension.

He spoke of an incident 16 years ago where Jiang threw a dumpling at Meng and hit her in the eye. After that, Jiang was careful not to become physically involved during conflict, and would instead withdraw, sometimes shutting himself in a different room when Meng was upset.

In cross-examination, defence lawyer Tony Bamford asked the witness about Meng’s relationship with Jiang’s family, and he replied that it was poor. She had told him that Jiang’s mother and sisters had bullied her.

He broke down in tears while describing how Jiang had attempted to apologise to Meng ‘‘for all the bad things he had done to her’’, but she had been unable to accept the apology.

Forensic pathologist Dr Martin Sage gave evidence that in his expert opinion, it was likely that Meng died as a result of severe asphyxia. She was deprived of oxygen due to a forced neck compression which he believed was a result of throttling, or manual strangulation. She also had bruises on her limbs.

Meng had an abrasion on her neck, which Sage said could have been the result of a fingernail imprint. She also had a graze on her left arm, the sort of mark made when clothing was pulled tight across skin.

Sage said a pattern of pinpoint haemorrhages on Meng’s forehead suggested that asphyxiation had occurred. The marks were also found in the linings of her airways and eye sockets. She also had a characteristic bone fracture injury to her voicebox.

Interpreter Cyril Young took the witness stand on Wednesday afternoon. He gave evidence that he had translated material obtained by police during the case from Mandarin into English, including messages and voice recordings from social media app WeChat.

Young said he translated messages between Jiang and a woman he was thought to be having an affair with. More than 9300 messages between them were retrieved, from between September 2017 and April 2018, when Jiang’s two phones were seized by police.

Young also translated the six voice recordings Meng sent to her brother Ming Meng via WeChat hours before her death.

‘‘Bin Jiang, he has an extramarital affair at home, I accidentally found it out as I noticed that after coming out [to New Zealand] he keep making calls behind my back, sending WeChats behind my back,’’ the first recording said.

She said her husband had been ‘‘sneaky’’ and ‘‘shameless’’ and she questioned what he had been doing.

‘‘How has he been bullying us, how has their family been bullying us? This is really unbearable. I have already put up with it for more than 30 years,’’ another said.

In the final recording, Meng asked her brother to forward her messages to Jiang’s family.

On Wednesday morning, witness statements were read to the court from a German couple, fellow tour group members who were staying in the hotel room next to Jiang and Meng’s.

Both said they were woken by loud noises between 2.30am and 3.30am, which lasted for up to five minutes. They were unable to tell if the noises were coming from the neighbouring room or the room above.

The trial has been adjourned and will resume on Monday.

The couple often argued, and sometimes this included physical contact.