'Make them suffer': Convicted double-murderer turns on church buddy at trial

There was a prolonged silence in the High Court at Auckland today as convicted double-murderer Shu Man Poon was asked the question on everyone’s mind, moments after he entered the witness box at his former friend’s trial.

“Why would you be involved in the murder of two people that you have not met?” Crown prosecutor Matthew Nathan wondered, referring to the 2023 killings of North Shore Hospital nurse Fuk-Fu Joseph Kwok, 66, and his wife, Mei Han Chong, 67.

Poon’s jaw clenched as he considered his words – ignoring the translator sitting beside him to eventually address the jury in English.

“First, before all of this happened, I was threatened by ... my co-offender that he will promise to destroy my family and maybe someone will be dead in my family,” he replied. “Also, I had a debt with him of $7000.”

The bizarre testimony – both due to its content and because it is rare for a murder convict to give evidence against a former co-defendant – comes during the second week of Lok Fung Lorrence Li’s trial for attempted murder and two counts of murder.

Li, 29, has admitted he took part in the killing of the couple inside their Ellerslie home in November 2023 but has suggested he is guilty of manslaughter – not murder.

Unlike Poon, he had met Kwok before, but only once – a brief interaction after a minor traffic accident 10 months earlier that led to a Disputes Tribunal case.

Li has pleaded not guilty to a separate plot in which he is alleged to have conspired with Poon to murder his former landlord after she wouldn’t let Li’s mother move in with him.

For months, the duo had schemed to kill the landlord, prosecutors have said.

But the murderous plan pivoted suddenly to the Ellerslie couple after Li received Kwok’s address from the Disputes Tribunal, it is alleged.

Poon pleaded guilty to all three charges last year, during the first days of the pair’s first murder trial, and submitted to a three-day police interview. That trial was aborted before the first witness was called, but he agreed to come back and give evidence at the retrial.

The balding inmate, 45, wore grey sweatpants embossed with the initials of his prison and a long grey rain jacket today as he sat in the witness box.

Shu Poon appears in the High Court at Auckland in 2025. He pleaded guilty to murdering Ellerslie couple Fuk-Fu Joseph Kwok and Mei Han Chong. Photo / Michael Craig

He had met Li at the end of a church service in May 2023 when a pastor introduced the two, he recalled.

“He [the pastor] was telling me to look after him,” Poon said.

“Basically, it could be seen as a promise. I’m trying to fulfil my promise to look after him.

“I thought that we are Christians, so looking after each other would be a blessed thing.”

He would meet with Li two to three days per week, he said, explaining that he considered his role to be like that of an older brother or mentor. During their varied discussions, Poon recalled Li frequently mentioning people who he thought had wronged him.

“He got such hate – having a hate towards them,” Poon said. “One of them is his landlord.”

The only specific complaint he could remember about the landlord was that she hadn’t replaced a broken table in Li’s room.

“The tone he was using was with anger,” Poon recalled, adding that Li said on more than one occasion words to the effect of: “If there was no law, I would probably punish them or even murder them”.

Li, he said, at one point devised a plan to lure the landlord to the property so he could place a tracking device on her vehicle and find out where her family lived.

“He used me as a bait or decoy,” Poon said, explaining that Li was successful on two separate occasions after telling the woman that he needed to search the house for lost property.

“If he knew the address [where she lived] it could be easier to take action ...

“He actually wanting to rob her family, and after robbing her, murder her.”

Lok Fung Lorrence Li, 29, is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of the double murder in November 2023 of Ellerslie residents Fuk-Fu Joseph Kwok, 66, and his wife Mei Han Chong, 67. Photo / Michael Craig

Prosecutors asked Poon to elaborate about the plan.

“Mr Li mentioned that we were both going to the address and both control those people, make them hurt,” the witness said.

“And then try to make them suffer to bring out the credit card code. He himself will go to one of the ATM machines to collect the money. Then, he said, if the code is not correct, he will tell me to make them suffer more.”

Poon said he didn’t initially take Li seriously, thinking it was adolescent bluster or a joke.

“Later, he started being more, more, more serious about it,” Poon said.

“I just think, ‘Oh, that makes me scared’. That is the reason why I went to the police station.”

Earlier witnesses have said Poon went to the police station in early September 2023, two months before the double homicide, and outlined the plan before having a panic attack and leaving for the hospital. Police never followed up on the report.

Poon told jurors today he had racked up the $7000 debt to Li when he purchased a whip for his martial arts training, a tomahawk, a baton, two sets of night-vision goggles, equipment for cutting glass, military boots and a pistol holster from an overseas website. He already had air guns that he used for target practice, he said.

Li started to talk to him about using some of the items for his own plan, but they were initially bought for camping and everyday use, Poon said.

As the plans got more serious, Poon said he tried to discourage his friend with increasing insistence and desperation.

“Hey man, this is already an illegal act,” he recalled telling the younger defendant one night over dinner. “This is not allowed. Come on, this is not right.”

He recalled Li brushing him off.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Li allegedly responded. “No one will find out.”

Poon eventually decided to reveal the plan to pastors at their church, where he played drums in the worship band.

His first intention, he told jurors, was to ask for a loan from the church so he could pay back Li and cut all ties.

But he also “wanted to be honest with the church” about the situation he found himself in, he said.

He was still holding out hope at that point that Li was joking, he said, but when the pastors urged him to go to police, he agreed to accompany them.

“I explained the whole thing to the officer,” he said, adding that he specifically mentioned his friend’s plan was to “rob and murder”.

When police didn’t follow up, Poon wrote out a letter outlining his reluctance to be involved in the plot. He described it to jurors today as a potential suicide note. In it, he said his mind hadn’t been the same since suffering an injury that put him on ACC.

Poon tried to break off the friendship with Li, he said, but he was given advice from another acquaintance that it was bad form to end a friendship while still owing someone money. So he bought Li dinner and asked for forgiveness.

Prosecutors read aloud to Poon a series of text messages after the reconciliation in which Li appeared to be trying to convince Poon to carry on with a plan.

“You have to know that what we do has significant meaning in order for us to open a chicken shop that you want most in the future,” one of the messages read, according to a translation from Chinese.

“Chicken shop” was a mistranslation, Poon said, explaining that it was actually a reference to him wanting to open a brothel.

Li’s message continued: “Use your strength to tell people who used to look down on you and thought you were incompetent that you can do it, even better than them. Live in a house bigger than theirs, buy a house, not renting, drive a sports car to your old church and show them how impressive you are.

“You need to know, the b***h deserved it.”

Other messages showed Poon seeming to discourage any crimes, including by suggesting that an officer had called him asking questions. He did not mention that he had already alerted police.

“Now the police are involved! Can’t continue it now! Don’t take the risk!” he wrote.

He added later: “If there is any more evidence in their hands, it will be screwed! Listen to me! Don’t act on impulse!”.

He then suggested to Li he knew better because he was involved in organised crime. The witness apologised to the court, stating today that he had no criminal background at all but was looking for another way to dissuade Li.

“Bring everything to me as soon as possible,” he repeatedly texted Li – a reference, he said, to an air pistol he had given Li for his birthday, a flashlight attachment for the gun and night-vision goggles.

“The reason I want everything back is to hide everything,” he said today.

Eventually, Poon’s text communications got more frantic.

“No! I don’t want to continue!” he wrote. “My age, my illness. And the verbal warning from the police! I’m tired.”

Poon has not yet been cross-examined by the defence. Prosecutors are set to continue asking him questions this afternoon.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.