EXCLUSIVE: Dings ‘helped prevent Anxiang Du’s deportation’ claims victim’s business partner

The Ding family

QUADRUPLE murder suspect Anxiang Du was only prevented from being deported back to China thanks to the help of the family he is thought to have killed, it has been revealed.

Du remains the prime suspect for the brutal murders of university lecturer Jifeng ‘Jeff’ Ding, his wife Helen Chui and their two children Xing, aged 18, and Alice, aged 12, having been on the run for almost six months.

However, it has now emerged that Du, from Coventry, was only prevented from being sent back to China when the Ding family helped out.

The Chronicle & Echo has been told Helen first became friends with Can Chen, Du’s wife – who is not implicated in the killings – while she worked at a Chinese herbal medicine shop in The Grosvenor Centre, in Northampton.

It is understood she told Helen she was concerned her husband’s work permit had expired and feared he would be sent back to China.

It was proposed Helen opened her own Chinese herbal medicine shop and employed the pair.

They eventually opened a shop in Coventry, followed by two more shops, in Cheltenham and Gloucester.

Helen Chui also owned a shop in St Peter’s Walk, off Gold Street, in Northampton, independently of the pair.

However, it is believed Du felt Helen was not pursuing the work permit application quickly enough and ended up stealing around £40,000 from one of the shops. He was eventually arrested and later sacked.

Du and his wife then pursued legal action against Helen Chui, claiming they were owed half the money from the businesses.

Paul Delaney, a business partner and close friend of Helen Chui, said the subsequent court cases were relentlessly and ruthlessly pursued by Du.

Speaking to the Chron for the first time, he said: “He was very vindictive and nasty.

“He wanted to bankrupt Helen and Jeff. He wanted to humiliate them in court.

“I have never experienced a more vindictive pursuing of someone through the courts.”

Faced with enormous legal costs and having failed to sell their house, the Dings were offered a lifeline by Mr Delaney, who bought a ‘reversionary interest’ in their home, in Pioneer Close, Simpson Manor, Wootton.

Under the agreement the house was sold to Mr Delaney and rented back to the Dings for a period of 21 years.

This allowed them to stay in Wootton, while their two girls were excelling in school.

Du fought the proposal, winning an initial hearing in Northampton, before the case went on to be heard in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and finally the Supreme Court.

Mr Delaney won the case and then launched his own bid to reclaim the court costs and eventually secured an injunction preventing Du from selling his own house.

The injunction was served on Du on Thursday, April 28, the day before the Dings were stabbed to death.