Peter "China" Lui and Kelly Cook. Photo / Supplied
Peter "China" Lui and Kelly Cook. Photo / Supplied
A woman widowed at the age of 37 after a gang-related stabbing says her husband's murderer "took away the love of my life".
Kelly Cook said her world was turned upside-down on March 29, 2021, when she got a phone call at work to tell her that her husband, Peter Lui, had been stabbed.
She drove as quickly as she could to the Outlaws Motorcycle Club clubhouse in Napier's Pandora district, where Lui had been attacked, arriving to find police blocking the road.
They told her that her husband, whom she called China, had just been taken away in an ambulance.
Following him to the hospital, Cook said was taken to a waiting room and spent an "agonising" time, not knowing how badly Lui had been hurt.
"When a cop finally came and got me and told me to come with him, I got so excited because I thought he was taking me to see him.
"Instead, I was taken into a room and told he had died. I felt my heart sink instantly. It was the most pain I had ever felt," Cook said.
"When I did get to see him, it was behind a glass screen with him lying on the hospital bed with tubes coming out of him and bruises and blood on his face.
"I just wanted to wake him up. I wanted to touch and kiss him and tell him I was here with him, but I couldn't."
Cook delivered her victim impact statement to the High Court at Napier this week when patched Mongrel Mob member Belmont Sonny Freedom Eruiti Te Aonui-Tawhai was sentenced to life in prison for Peter Lui's murder.
She told him that he was a "coward" who ambushed a man who had no chance to defend himself.
Peter Lui, 63, died from blood loss after being stabbed on Mersey St, Napier in March 2021. Photo NZME
"There is no honour in what you did. You should be embarrassed about how gutless you are."
Te Aonui-Tawhai had earlier pleaded guilty to the murder charge, and to assault with a weapon and aggravated robbery.
Justice Palmer imposed a non-parole period of 13 years.
Te Aonui-Tawhai was 22 years old when, in a car, he pursued Lui's motorcycle through Napier before knocking him off his machine and jumping out of the vehicle to stab his victim 13 times while he was on the ground.
His intention was to take Lui's Outlaws patch as a gang trophy.
Lui, 63, died from blood loss soon afterwards.
Kelly Cook said on the day her husband died, a piece of her died too. They had been together for 10 years and married for five.
"At 37 years old I had become a widow. I had been robbed of the only man I had ever loved, robbed of all my happiness, my security and my future," she said.
"China was special. He meant the world to me. I loved that man with everything I had.
"I would have done anything for him. His death will affect me forever."
She said that China's death had also affected her daughters, who had lost the only real father they had known.
Cook said she was "haunted" by the way Lui's life was taken from him.
The courts have been told that Te Aonui-Tawhai and an accomplice were in the car when they saw Lui on his motorcycle and pursued him to the Outlaws' clubhouse.
Te Aonui-Tawhai inflicted 11 stab wounds to Lui's upper arms and nose, and two incised wounds to his chest and right upper arm.
Lui was kicked and punched and his patch was taken before he was left lying on the ground, bleeding.
"The offending involved a pre-meditated attack on a member of another gang and the use of a weapon, multiple times, to facilitate robbery of a gang patch," Justice Palmer said.
Other members of Lui's family, including his son, daughter, two sisters and a niece, read statements to the court.
They described Lui, who was an electrician, as a hard-working, caring and loving father and brother, who was the head of their family line and could trace his Chinese ancestry back to the year 1200.
They said his membership of the Outlaws club was just one aspect of his life and he believed he did not need to be involved in criminal or violent activities to be a member.
The other person in the car with Te Aonui-Tawhai, Hemi Rapata Meihana Cahill, 30, was found guilty of assault using a motor vehicle as a weapon after a trial in July.
However, the trial jury could not reach a verdict on whether Cahill was also a party to murder.
