A vulnerable woman was kept as a slave by a couple with children, controlled and beaten by the husband, deprived of food and access to the outside world, prosecutors allege.
The 61-year-old allegedly performed unpaid domestic work, including massaging the man's feet, looking after their children and cleaning, while sleeping on the stairs or in a garage, a jury has been told.
The victim, who cannot be legally identified, died in 2024. However, her evidence to police, friends and family will be shown to a jury of 14.
Chee Kit "Max" Chong, and his wife Angie Liaw, sat in the back of Victoria’s County Court in Melbourne as prosecutors opened their case against the couple on Tuesday.
Chong is charged with intentionally possessing a slave between January and October 2022, and three counts of assault, while Liaw is charged with assisting Chong to keep the woman as a slave.
Both have pleaded not guilty and deny all of the alleged offending.
Prosecutor Shaun Ginsbourg SC told the jury Chong met the woman at church in Malaysia in 2015, their relationship was like mother and son, and she was akin to a mother-in-law for Liaw.
The commonwealth prosecutor said the three of them initially visited Australia together in 2016 and returned to make a life in Australia the following year.
Mr Ginsbourg alleged Chong tried to get money out of the woman on a number of occasions, including $30,000 just before her arrival back in Australia, which she asked a woman from church for.
The victim was on a tourist visa in 2017 and lived with the couple initially, before they left to Malaysia without telling her in October and she became homeless, he said.
He said she began selling the Big Issue and stayed at Salvation Army accommodation, before getting a job at an op shop during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she also slept for a period of time.
The woman allegedly moved back in with the couple in January 2022, to help Liaw with their newborn baby, which is when the prosecutor submitted the modern slavery began.
By this point, she had multiple vulnerabilities as she was homeless, on a tourist visa with no independent income and isolated from her family in Malaysia, he said.
"Chong described her to other people as his 'maid or helper'," Mr Ginsbourg said.
"Mr Chong threatened and coerced (the victim) to provide domestic services, repeatedly told her she had to work to repay supposed debts.
"When (the victim) failed at her duties, or failed to complete them to Chong's satisfaction, he would often hit or kick her, or punish her by telling her she could not sleep or eat that day.
"On one occasion, he told her if she paid $1 million she could leave, but otherwise she had to stay."
He said the woman was forced to sleep on the stairs, or inside a garage, instead of a bedroom at their Point Cook home, in Melbourne's southwest.
This included being locked in the garage during the day because Chong "did not want her to go out and look for food", Mr Ginsbourg said.
She wasn't allowed to leave the home without Chong, Mr Ginsbourg said, including for medical help after his alleged assaults.
Chong is accused of kicking the woman in the head and hitting her with a vacuum cleaner after she fell asleep while massaging his legs, the prosecutor said.
Chong also confiscated the woman's identification documents, another way he was controlling and restricting of her freedom, the jury heard.
Mr Ginsbourg accused Liaw of benefiting from the woman's domestic services and asking Chong to give her instructions or tasks, helping Chong in controlling her.
The trial before Judge Michael Cahill continues, with defence to give their responses later on Tuesday.
