Perth girl says she feared for her boyfriend’s life after her mum started stabbing him

3 months ago 25

A Perth teenage girl has recounted the terrifying moment she watched her mum repeatedly stab her 14-year-old boyfriend after finding him half naked in her house in October 2023.

Jennifer Mui Len Chin, 49, has pleaded not guilty to causing bodily harm after the boy was left with four superficial stab wounds, claiming that she thought he was an intruder who had broken into the family’s Parkwood home and was holding her daughter against her will.

Jennifer Mui Len Chin and her husband Clinton Barnes leaving Perth District Court on August 5, 2025.

On day two of her trial in Perth’s District Court, the jury was shown a pre-recorded interview with Chin’s 14-year-old daughter six days after the incident, where she describes the moment her conservative Christian mother discovered the teenage boy in her husband’s bed after she had snuck him in for a forbidden sexual encounter.

“She started screaming, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’,” the girl told the interviewer.

“She asked my brother Dylan to grab a knife … he went to grab it, and I was on the bed ... she tried to use it against [the teenage boy] but I got between them, and she didn’t hit me. I said, ‘Ma, you will be the one that goes to jail for this’ in a warning tone, but not a bitchy tone.

“She said, ‘I don’t care, he’s an intruder’.”

The court previously heard that the girl had snuck the boy in after her father left for a nightshift at Crown and had sex with him in her father’s bedroom at the front of the house while her mum watched “Asian dramas” in the living room.

She told an interviewer in 2023 that the couple had a “routine” of spending time together in secret at her home when her father left for work. The pair, who attended the same high school, had been dating for six months but were forced to keep the relationship a secret as she was not permitted to date, or have boys in the house.

But the jury heard that Chin had become suspicious after noticing the door to her husband’s bedroom was unusually closed one evening and went to investigate, discovering her daughter asking her if she liked her dress.

The girl gave evidence that it was an attempt to distract her mum while her boyfriend hid under the covers of the bed, but that “it didn’t work” and Chin had spotted his shoes and pushed her way into the bedroom.

She then recounted how her accountant mum held onto the boy’s wrists with one hand, while trying to “hit [the teen] with the knife”.

The girl gave evidence that she tried to get between the pair, “so he could get free … so I could save his life” adding that she lied to her mum that the teen was homeless after being kicked out of home.

“I was screaming stuff out … I know it was a lie, I was just trying to get her to sympathise with [the boy]. I was just trying to protect him,” she said.

“I didn’t really care that she was holding his wrists, just as long as she didn’t murder him.”

The girl also gave evidence that her boyfriend’s voice was trembling as he “repetitively” said sorry to the woman and tried to leave.

The boy earlier testified that he eventually ran from Chin’s grip as she was trying to restrain him and escaped to the front door but that it was locked and he was forced to turn and face her.

He told the jury the mother-of-two then used the 23 centimetre kitchen knife to stab him twice in the chest area in front of her distressed six-year-old son, causing superficial wounds, which lead the teen to “hunch over” and turn around, before exclaiming, “shit, I’m bleeding”.

The jury then heard that Chin stabbed him twice more from behind to his shoulder, before her daughter unlocked the front door and the pair ran from the house to a nearby vacant lot where they called emergency services.

Chin’s defence lawyer Mark Andrews told the jury on Tuesday that she did not deny what happened on the night in question, but that she did it because she believed the boy was an intruder and that she needed to protect her family.

The court heard it “never crossed her mind for a moment” that he was her daughter’s boyfriend.

“She panicked, yelled ‘intruder, intruder, intruder … who are you?’ ... she was desperate and in fear,” he said.

“It never crossed her mind for a moment that [her daughter] had brought this man into the house. She didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.”

At 5 foot 2 inches and weighing only 49 kilograms, Andrews said Chin wanted the knife “to protect herself”.

“She brandished the knife and hoped he would remain where he was until [her husband] got home,” he said.

“The last thing she thought was that her daughter and this male had engaged in sexual activity. As far as she knew her 14-year-old daughter was still a virgin.”

Chin is expected to give evidence later this week.

The trial continues.