Jury told of love rivalry

AN accounting student accused of assaulting her housemate has told a jury the housemate became aggressive and threatening towards her after she rejected his wish to be her boyfriend.

Xin Wang, 27, and Xinyi Li, 25, have both pleaded not guilty to assaulting their housemate Liang Chen at their

Blackmans Bay home on July 15 last year.

Speaking through an interpreter as she gave evidence in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday, Ms Wang said Mr Chen had told her he liked and admired her and wanted to be her boyfriend.

“But I rejected him,” she said.

She said Mr Chen’s behaviour towards her changed after she rejected him, and that he became aggressive and complained more.

Ms Wang said when she and Mr Li became a couple in June last year, Mr Chen increased his complaints, was threatening and aggressive.

She told the jury it was a complaint Mr Chen made about her and posted on social media platform WeChat that led to a confrontation on the morning of July 15 last year.

Ms Wang said the post included an abbreviation she understood to mean motherf…ing idiot and six bomb emojis.

“I feel threatened because he previously said he would kill me. I was very afraid so I wanted to ask him why did he post that,” she said.

Ms Wang said she knocked on Mr Chen’s bedroom door, which he opened, and asked him why he posted it. She said they exchanged words and Mr

Chen pushed her to the floor, punched her and kicked her.

Ms Wang said Mr Li became involved and she told the two men to stop fighting and tried to pull them apart.

She said that when she went back to making breakfast later Mr Chen was “very aggressive and threatening” and she told him she would “use this knife to protect myself”.

She said Mr Chen “at first … acted like he was very surprised and then he said, ‘oh, you have a knife, you can kill me, kill me, try it, try it’.”

Ms Wang’s lawyer Garth Stevens put three of Mr Chen’s allegations to her: that she grabbed him by the throat, held him while Mr Li punched him, and pointed a knife at him and said she was going to kill him.

“I didn’t do that,” she said in response to each one.

The trial continues.