Fan ‘talked of sharing custody’

A WOMAN who befriended Mei Fan after she had been staying in a Women’s Refuge safe house has recounted how Fan told her she thought her estranged husband would kill her.

The woman, who has name suppression, thought of Fan like a sister, the High Court at Wellington was told yesterday.

During a conversation her situation, Fan told the woman she did not think she wanted full custody of her two children after separating from husband Michael Preston.

‘‘When I asked why, she said she thought Michael would kill her.’’

The witness said she was shocked. Fan kept saying how scared she was.

Court services manager Robyn Fraser read a Family Court file to the jury outlining how, in an affidavit, Fan wrote that Preston had breached a trespass order by going to her home to tell her it was ‘‘100 per cent’’ she would be deported.

Despite a previous protection order being discharged in the Family Court, Fan applied for a new order on November 7, the day before the Crown alleges Preston killed her.

Preston, 60 has pleaded not guilty to murdering Fan and breaching a protection order by physically abusing her on November 8, 2013.

The Crown case is that Preston, upset about the protection order served on him, and wanting full custody of the couple’s children, killed Fan in an attack that left the

about knife embedded in her neck.

She was found dead in her home in Brussels St, Miramar, on November 10.

In the affidavit, Fan said Preston turned up at her house on November 5. He got his daughter to let him in and stayed even when Fan asked him to leave.

Fraser said Preston had come to let Fan know that she would not be staying any longer in New Zealand and that his letter to Immigration had been accepted.

‘‘He said it was 100 per cent I would be leaving . . . he said it in front of the children,’’ Fan wrote.

Preston left only when Fan called police.

She felt stalked, and that his behaviour was intimidating and threatening.

Michael Preston Wellington Women’s Refuge social worker Kaye Flude, who helped Fan into a safe house in 2012, said Preston would tell her he had been to see Housing NZ and told them disreputable things to stop her getting a house.

She also said Preston would approach anyone who would listen, such as Immigration NZ, police and the Chinese embassy, about getting Fan deported.

Immigration NZ analyst Aleli Go outlined multiple contact with Preston, who complained about Fan being in a relationship with Tani Hoyhtya while she was married. He claimed she had thus fraudulently applied for residence in New Zealand on the basis she was with Preston.

The trial is expected to take six weeks.