Desperate couple offer son’s killer £40,000 to just get grandson back
THE parents of a British executive murdered by his estranged wife in China have taken the heartwrenching decision to offer their son’s killer more than £40,000 so that their grandchildren can grow up together in the UK.
Ian and Linda Simpson with their family and supporters have spent two years fighting for custody of Alice, six, and eight-year-old Jack after their son Michael was stabbed to death in a jealous rage by Wei Wei Fu in his Shanghai apartment in March 2017.
They won custody of Alice in December and flew her home to start a new life in Suffolk after agreeing to pay Wei Wei’s family more than £9,000, guaranteeing that the siblings would speak by video link every week and meet up once a year.
But while the weekly calls have gone ahead, Jack’s Chinese grandparents have refused to honour the court agreement and hopes of a summer holiday reunion in Britain were dashed when they refused to let him leave their home in northwest China.
Now Ian and Linda have written to the family offering to put 350,000 yuan (£40,200) into an account for Wei Wei to support her after she is released from her life term for murder if they agree to let Jack leave China for the UK.
The extraordinary offer to their son’s killer is the latest turn in a
‘You have to put your emotions to one side’
painful two-year transglobal custody fight over Jack and Alice, who were whisked away to the backward city of Nanzhang and denied contact with their British grandparents for a year after the murder.
Michael, 34, an executive with clothing firm Next who had lived in China for nine years, was killed in his Shanghai apartment by Wei Wei as Jack and Alice slept.
The couple had split two years earlier and Michael had been left to raise the children.
He was with his new partner when Wei Wei burst into his flat and stabbed him in the neck, killing him instantly.
She also attacked Michael’s girlfriend and left her with lifelong injuries.
Within days, Jack and Alice had been spirited 600 miles from Shanghai to live in Nanzhang with their Chinese grandparents, bicycle repairman Fu Shi Bao, 61, and Hu Dei Xiu, 55, while their mother awaited trial for Michael’s murder.
As Ian and Linda launched a complex legal fight for custody of the children which has already cost more than £100,000, the Fu family at one stage demanded more than £60,000 to hand over both Jack and Alice before finally agreeing to let Alice leave in a deal struck in court on Christmas Day.
The family earlier rejected an offer of £10,000 and a declaration of forgiveness from the Simpson family in return for handing over the children – a deal which under Chinese law could have halved Wei Wei’s minimum 20-year term when she was sentenced in July last year.
Ian, 70, told The Mail on Sunday he wrote a letter to the Chinese family last week making the £40,000 offer after being told taking legal action to force them to abide by the court agreement would cost about £25,000 upwards and take up to a year – with no guarantee that they would ever comply.
‘The reason the Fu family want to keep Jack is so he can look after his mother – that is the [traditional] Chinese approach,’ he said.
‘The earliest Wei Wei will get out is 2036 and Jack will be 27 by that time. We’ve said we will put money in Wei Wei’s bank account and it will be worth double by the time she gets out, and that is the alternative to them hanging on to Jack.’
The decision to offer money to their son’s killer was an emotionally fraught one, admitted Ian, who is focusing on the welfare of Jack, who in recent months has finally been told his father is dead and has visited his mother in prison.
‘Believe me, it isn’t fair to Michael,’ he said. ‘But you have to come back to what is practical and put your emotions to one side.
‘If money is what it takes to bring Jack to Britain and reunite him with Alice, that is what we have to do.’