Friend tells court of bruises on wife's face

Nai Yin Xue. Photo / Paul Estcourt

An An Liu was asked if her husband Nai Yin Xue was abusing her after a friend noticed bruises on her face.

Graham McNamara did tai chi training with Xue for about six years and during that time visited his house several times where he met Ms Liu.

Her body was found in Xue's car after he abandoned the couple's 3-year-old daughter, Qian, at a Melbourne railway station. Xue was arrested months later in the United States and charged with Ms Liu's murder.

Mr McNamara told the High Court at Auckland yesterday that on one of his visits to the couple's home he asked Ms Liu if Xue was harming her.

"I noticed An An was in the hallway, I asked her if everything was okay. She was very upset."

He asked whether Xue was abusing her.

"She didn't really answer; she looked too frightened to answer, too upset."

Mr McNamara told her she could talk with him, or "if things weren't right she could notify the police".

He had noticed a bruise about the size of a 20 cent coin under her right eye, the same place he had seen a red mark on a previous occasion.

Mr McNamara said there was an imbalance in the relationship. "Michael [the name he knew Xue by] was in control."

He described their marriage as cold and said there was "no warmth in the house".

Xue could be mean about money and preferred that everyone paid for him, he said.

Xue got angry when he greeted Ms Liu with a kiss one day.

He told the court she looked upset so he kissed her on the cheek but when he did it Xue looked annoyed and walked out of the room, saying something in Chinese.

"I told him it was a general Kiwi way for greeting a friendship and he told me he didn't like it."

He said he had "severe words" with Xue after Ms Liu returned to China with Qian and didn't have anything to do with him after that.

Under cross examination by defence lawyer Chris Comeskey, Mr McNamara admitted he didn't know much about Chinese culture and accepted Chinese people were generally more reserved than New Zealanders.

He also said he was assuming Xue bruised Ms Liu's face but had never been told that.

Another witness, Xiaoxing Ding, said she had been told by Ms Liu that she only married Xue so she could obtain New Zealand residency and that she was embarrassed by her older husband.

In cross examination, Ms Ding said Ms Liu refused to sleep with Xue once she was granted residency and would say mean things to make him angry.

She told of seeing a dating website on Ms Liu's laptop and thought she had been internet "chatting" with other men after she left Xue.

Ms Liu didn't tell her she had been but she saw a message "flashing" on the computer screen that someone had replied to her, she said.

The trial has been set down for three weeks.