Michael Preston during his 2015 trial for the murder of his estranged wife Mei Fan. The Court of Appeal has ruled his sentence is not manifestly excessive because of the aggravating features of the crime. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Michael Preston during his 2015 trial for the murder of his estranged wife Mei Fan. The Court of Appeal has ruled his sentence is not manifestly excessive because of the aggravating features of the crime. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Wellington man Michael Preston has had his conviction and life imprisonment sentence upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Last December, the 61-year-old was sent to prison with a minimum non-parole period of 19 years for stabbing his estranged wife Mei Fan to death over a custody dispute in 2013.
Preston was found guilty of the murder following a five-week trial which included frequently graphic, bloody and highly emotional testimony in the High Court at Wellington.
He stabbed Fan 38 times in a frenzied attack in her Miramar home in November 2013, leaving the knife embedded in her neck.
Her body was later found lying in a pool of blood on the laundry floor.
The Crown said he killed his estranged wife because of a custody dispute over the couple's two children.
Wellington murder victim Mei Fan. Photo / Supplied
However, Preston appealed his convictions citing a miscarriage of justice and appealed his sentence saying it was too high.
A Court of Appeal decision released this afternoon said Preston's first ground of appeal was the inclusion of his Facebook postings and texts to his adult daughters as evidence.
December 18, 2013 at 12.46pm Preston sent the following two texts to one of his daughters in quick succession:
"If Kathryn thinks I might have killed Mei over losing my kids then she needs to reconsider how much stress she's got me under at the mom and how long b4 I"
"... really do snap."
December 27, 2013 at 12.41pm Preston sent the following text to another daughter:
"Don't want 2 listen 2 [other daughter] talk about Kathryn and hnw gr8 she is. I rather go back to NZ and plot my sister's death."
February 28, 2014 at 11.54 am and 12.45 pm respectively, Preston sent the following two texts to his third daughter:
"2 yrs is 2 much. I'm not prepared 2 let her hav my kids that long. She'll pay dearly 4 this."
"Do you really think the cops want more bodies on their hands."
On appeal, Preston's lawyer Stephen Gill says the trial judge was wrong to admit into evidence the text which referred to "more bodies" because of the prejudicial effect outweighed its relevance.
However the Court of Appeal ruled the evidence was "plainly admissible" because they showed Preston could harbour homicidal thoughts towards those who were close with him or kept him from his children.
Preston also took issue with one of his Facebook messages to a friend after the murder being included in the trial.
The friend messaged Preston: "have they found anyone in relation to what happened man".
On December 21, 2013, Preston replied: "they have got several ounces of nothing. It was a pro job ;-)".
Again, the Court of Appeal ruled the evidence was "plainly admissible" because it showed Preston was apparently expressing satisfaction in the police's failure to progress their investigation into Fan's death.
Michael Preston in the dock during his 2015 trial in the High Court at Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Preston's second ground of appeal was Fan's statements before she was killed. These included:
July 22, 2013, texts from Fan to Preston: "Why U said U want me die. Are U going to kill me?"
October 2, 2013, Fan told a police officer she was worried about Preston's reaction if she got full custody because sometimes he was so crazy she worried he could kill her.
November 3, 2013, after an outing with her friend, Fan became emotional and told her she didn't want full custody of their children "'Cos Michael will kill me".
The friend asked her "Really?" and she replied "Yes, definitely" and repeated that she was "really, really scared".
And in late October or early November, 2013, Fan's lover Fani Hoyhtya said that in a Skype conversation with Fan within two weeks of her death, she told him Preston had said to her "I want to kill you."
Gill argued the statements were unreliable and hearsay but the Court of Appeal did not agree.
Preston's third ground of appeal was what he told his pastor the day Fan's body was found.
Salvation Army minister Captain Malcolm Robinson gave evidence and said he noticed Preston leave the congregation during his service and found him in a bathroom afterwards, crying over the basin.
He asked if he could help and after about a minute, Preston composed himself and they had a conversation.
"Mr Robinson described Mr Preston as crying but coherent, extremely edgy and said that he moved away from the basin and looked to the heavens saying, 'What have I done?'." the judgment said.
The evidence was appealed because Preston was seeking and obtaining spiritual advice and comfort.
But again, the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision to include it because there was nothing spiritual about what Preston said and were "more in the nature of a spontaneous utterance".
The fourth ground of appeal, not upheld, was that the judge overstated the effect of an expert witness who matched the powder in the gloves worn by the killer to the console in Preston's car.
Gill also argued the crown was "highly speculative, emotive and derogatory" that stern warnings were issued by the trial judge and so was beyond the proper bounds of prosecutorial conduct.
Preston also appealed his sentence and minimum non-parole period which was imposed by the trial judge because the killing was "brutal, cruel and callous to a very high level".
The Court of Appeal concluded the minimum period was not manifestly excessive because of the aggravating features of the crime.
