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Xiaoyan Hu in court - Source: Fairfax
A woman who killed her boyfriend by stabbing him in the neck after an argument about him leaving his wife has been sentenced to two years and seven months in prison.
Xiaoyan Hu, 35, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November over the incident at their Howick home on December 8, 2010.
Her partner, Jiacui Xiao, 45, was found lying in the driveway and died on the way to hospital. At the time police said it appeared that the couple had been in a domestic dispute.
At her sentencing today, details of the pair's volatile relationship emerged. Hu's lawyer Barry Hart said she was angry with her partner because he had been promising to leave his wife and commit to her and their new child, but had not.
However, she had not intended to kill him when she stabbed him with a kitchen knife.
Hu has been in custody since her 2010 arrest, and at today's High Court in Auckland Justice Patricia Courtney said Hu is probably able to apply for parole immediately.
"I would have expected prospects for parole to be good."
Today the court heard that Hu and Xiao had been in a relationship for two years and had a two-month-old child.
They had a volatile relationship and police had been called several times.
On the day of the incident the couple had been arguing about Xiao's "domestic relationship".
It's understood he was still married to his wife who lived south of Auckland with their son and daughter. Hu also suspected he was seeing other women.
The Crown contends that something Xiao said sparked a chain of events that saw Hu walk into the kitchen, select a knife and walk back into the bedroom where her partner sat at a computer.
The argument continued and Hu sunk the knife's 7cm blade into the left side of Xiao's neck.
The knife cut two thirds of the way through his carotid artery, causing a fatal loss of blood.
Hart argued that she hadn't meant to stab Xiao in the neck and certainly hadn't meant to kill him.
He said she was definitely angry however as Xiao had been promising to leave his wife and commit himself to her and their new child.
In her victim impact statement Xiao's wife said a loved husband and father had passed away and their lives had been miserable as a result.
Justice Courtney said reports on Hu's life "painted a bleak picture" including being abused as a child and a history of subsequent drug and alcohol abuse.
She said Hu was diagnosed as suffering from a chronic mood disorder complicated by a borderline personality disorder.
She also hadn't had follow up care after the birth of her baby, instead returning to work to earn money and advance her plans of leaving Xiao.
Hu was supported in court by several people including her church pastor.
Initially Hu indicated she would fight the charge but pleaded guilty at a call-over hearing at the High Court in November.
Hu and Xiao's toddler is in the care of Child Youth and Family.
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