Alleged murderer Wei Li tells SA court he killed his mother in self-defence when she attacked him

UPDATED: A former high-achieving student who fled Australia has told a jury he killed his “yelling, screaming” mother in self-defence after she “came at” him because he was practising martial arts instead of the piano.

A FORMER high-achieving student who fled Australia has told a jury he killed his “yelling, screaming” mother in self-defence after she “came at” him because he was practising martial arts instead of the piano.

Giving evidence in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Wei Li said he could do nothing to appease Emma Mae Tien when she attacked him in their Burnside home in March 2011.

He said he knew he was supposed to practise piano in the morning and did not think his change of routine would be of concern.

However, he said “it obviously was to my mother”, claiming she beat him if he did not get straight As at school and that his father was an abusive alcoholic.

“She was yelling, screaming, I tried to appease her but there was nothing I could do to calm her down ... she just came at me out of nowhere, it happened so fast,” he said.

“At some point I realised she had something in her hand ... she was just going at me ... I was totally overwhelmed.

“Although this had happened before — many, many times before — I knew this time she wanted seriously to hurt me for what I had been doing, and nothing I said could reason with her.

“This time, I knew I had no choice but to try and stop her ... I think she wanted to kill me ... I had to fight back, I had to, I had to stop her.”

However his evidence, and his account of covering his mother’s body with a sheet after she stopped moving, was questioned by prosecutor Jim Pearce, QC.

Mr Pearce suggested Li’s testimony was an “invention” designed to “justify” premeditated murder.

“Did you want to cover your mother up, or cover up your crime?” he asked.

Wei Li’s father, Jianlu Li, outside court during an earlier hearing.

Li, 22, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Tien but has admitted she died by his hand during the incident.

Prosecutors have alleged the killing was premeditated, as evidenced by Google searches for stabbing and police avoidance techniques.

The court has also heard Li bought a one-way ticket to Singapore after the incident, and did not return to Australia for three years.

Giving evidence, Li said he lived in China with his grandparents until the age of 10 while his parents lived and worked in Australia “to provide me with a good life”.

He said that, during that decade, he would see his mother once or twice a year during school holidays for “a week, a few weeks at most”.

Li said he emigrated at the age of 10, and his mother gave him the “Australian name” of Daniel.

“It’s just an English name that my mother has claimed for me for convenience reasons,” he said.

“It’s a bit embarrassing ... my mother picked the actor’s name for Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, who she was very fond of.”

He said that, from the age of 12, he had been “obsessed” with suicide, particularly traditional forms such as the Japanese concept of harakiri.

“I had a history of suicide, I had multiple failed attempts ... I was not very good at it,” he said.

“I had to research how to do it ... I was scared of pain, scared of blood, scared of everything essentially.

“I had to research how to finish myself off on the internet.”

Li said his father was “an alcoholic, a violent man” who was “abusive to my mother” and his mother “meant everything to me”.

“My mother and I would cry ourselves to sleep in the same bed ... I was attached to my mother because of those experiences,” he said.

A court sketch of Wei Li. Illustration: Tim Ide

However, he said his mother became physically abusive toward him after his father left her with the burden of running their family business.

“That’s when she started beating me,” he said.

“The more angry and violent she became, it got so bad she started beating me on a daily basis.”

He said her assaults were sometimes prompted by his academic scores.

“She was never satisfied, it was never enough for her ... if I didn’t get a straight A, it would result in a beating,” he said.

Li said his memory of the morning of his mother’s death was “very blurry” due to trauma, but he could recall it had started normally.

“I was supposed to go to university to lectures and tutorials ... I did not want to go to the shop (owned by his parents) and work,” he said.

“I was supposed to learn the piano and I knew that ... my mum wanted me to play the piano every morning ... I didn’t want to.”

He said he had joined a university martial arts club, focused on defensive techniques, two weeks prior to the incident and preferred to “stretch and exercise” to start his day.

“It didn’t feel like a big deal ... it obviously was to my mother,” he said.

Li said he covered his mother’s body after the incident out of respect because he “could not leave her laying there in that state”.

“Nothing after that point was rational ... I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t know what had happened, where I was, what I was doing,” he said.

“I didn’t know what to do ... I had to go back to my family ... I couldn’t deal with it myself ... there was nothing in Australia for me.”

He said that, upon his arrival in China, he met with his father and extended family and eventually found work as a teacher.

Li said his family urged him to return to Australia but he refused and, eventually, they respected his wishes.

“(I thought) if I stayed in China I would have given up everything my family had worked for for 20 years ... everything my parents and I worked for to get me where I was in Australia,” he said.

“All of that would go down the drain ... (in China) I couldn’t say who I was, I couldn’t go to school, I didn’t have qualifications.

“But by coming back to Australia I could get my qualifications ... those certificates, piles and piles of certificates, would not be toilet paper.

“My parents, especially my mother, worked so hard to get me where I was ... sweat, tears and blood, literally ... I had to come back.”

In cross-examination, Mr Pearce repeatedly asked for details about the incident, but Li said he could not be specific about the “violent struggle”.

He also said he could not recount the “insult after insult” yelled at him by his mother “for the s--t I was doing” because she had been speaking in Chinese.

Li said his mother “charged” at him while carrying a metal bar, injuring him across both arms, and also scratched his neck with her fingernails.

He said he came close to passing out as she tried to strangle him, conceding that the injuries he had sustained were “maybe not so obvious” in photos taken after the incident.

Mr Pearce said that was why he was pressing for specifics.

“When you were trying to save your life from the attack you say was launched upon you by your mother, what did you to do to try and save your life?” he asked.

“How did you kill your mother?”

Li replied: “I caused my mother’s death.”

Li pointed out that forensic experts had said his mother had been strangled, and conceded his hands were around her neck “at some point” during the struggle.

“That was not a conscious thing, there was nothing else I could restrain her with,” he said.

“During a struggle, you can’t dictate where you grab someone ... she was going to kill me.”

He said he cleaned up his mother’s blood, following the incident, because he was worried about getting in trouble for staining the marble floor.

He said he soaked his martial arts clothing — which he was wearing at the time of the incident — to “preserve the 100 per cent Japanese cotton”.

The trial, before Justice Trish Kelly and a jury of six men and six women, continues.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW MAY BE AT RISK OF SUICIDE, CONTACT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING FOR HELP: LIFELINE on 13 11 14; BEYONDBLUE on 1300 22 46 36, OR THE SALVO CARE LINE, 1300 36 36 22.

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