The migrant maid who was allegedly murdered by her British businessman lover in Hong Kong toiled away to send a pittance to her family in Indonesia, who she was due to see shortly before her death. 

Married entrepreneur Jamie Chapman, 34, is in custody in Hong Kong accused of killing his alleged lover Mevi Novitasari, 25, after a night-time assignation at a waterfall beauty spot.

It has been claimed the pair entered the small coastal park together – but Chapman, who is from Surrey and has a wife and young son in Hong Kong, left alone.

Miss Novitasari’s body was found on the beach at the foot of the waterfall the next morning with serious head injuries last Monday. 

The Muslim single-mother had been working as a maidservant in the former British colony and sending a few hundred pounds a month home to her five-year-old daughter and parents in Cilacap, on Java, Indonesia. Tragically she had been due to return to their arms while awaiting the renewal of her two-year Hong Kong visa.

Last night grieving Miss Novitasari’s mother Manisem said: ‘We were eagerly expecting her home, but instead we received the news of her passing.

‘We are shocked by her untimely death.’

After only first hearing rumours of her demise on social media, the family then received a brief call from the Indonesian consulate in Hong Kong, before a visit from the Association of Former Migrant Workers Union of Indonesia yesterday.

At the same time in Hong Kong, the Daily Mail witnessed a demonstration by the Indonesian Migrant Workers of Hong Kong in the now China-controlled island’s Victoria park.

Women in headscarves called for ‘Justice for Waterfall Bay victim’, while fundraising for Miss Novitasari’s family, and demanding compensation for them.

Some among tens of thousands of Indonesian servants on the island, almost all women, they complain of harsh working conditions, mainly in Chinese homes, with little government protection.

They are currently modestly campaigning for a guaranteed 11 rest hours per 24-hour day – eight to sleep, three to relax, and a limit of 13 hours’ daily labour.

Migrant Workers Union chairwoman Sring – who said she had only one name – said: ‘Of course the law in the Chinese court must be fair for Mr Chapman.

‘But it must find justice for Mevi too, and remember she was not only a woman, and a domestic worker, but a human being who was brutally killed.’

The Indonesian campaigner also noted that Miss Novitasari is not her first vulnerable countrywoman to meet a grim end in Hong Kong.

Ten years ago two Indonesian women aged 26 and 23, one from the same region as Miss Novitasari, were tortured and murdered there by British serial killer Rurik Jutting – like Chapman, from Surrey – who is now serving life in jail on the island.

And Chapman, who was remanded on Friday in custody at Hong Kong eastern court until a next hearing in the New Year, could find himself alongside Jutting in jail.

After allegedly leaving Waterfall Park last week, he seems to have returned to the home he shared with his wife, a Hong Kong national, 36, and their young son, in a high-rise block of flats on the islet of Ap Lei Chau.

They are then said to have departed Hong Kong for the mainland – but were both arrested at a a high-speed railway station in West Kowloon there on Tuesday, apparently on their way back home.

Mrs Chapman has been freed on bail after being arrested on suspicion of aiding an offender. She must report to a police station in December.

When the Daily Mail called at the Chapmans’ 19th floor flat, their son’s scooter and trike were outside. Mrs Chapman declined to speak, saying she felt ‘unwell’.

Local media has speculated Chapman had met Miss Novitasari to end their alleged affair – and that she then died. She had been working with another family, and according to local law should have been living with them. Housemaids here only have Sunday off.

It is not clear if she was dead before she hit the shallow pool on the beach 40 feet below the precarious top of the waterfall, which can only be reached by climbing over barriers.

The prosecution on Friday successfully sought an adjournment so police investigation can continue. There was neither any objection from Chapman’s lawyer, nor any request for bail, nor a plea.

Superintendent Sin Kwok-Ming said Chapman had done ‘many unreasonable things, including not contacting police’.

Chapman, believed to be a Loughborough university graduate, launched an upmarket Italian ice cream ‘gelateria’ called Givres in one of central Hong Kong’s smartest areas eight years ago.

He had more recently relocated the shop to the high-rise city’s equivalent of London’s trendy Soho, and renamed it Barista, with more of an emphasis on coffee.

Online he boasts his ice cream concept ‘was born in London’, and that his ice creams sculpted into the form of roses are ‘topped off with Great British service’.

He was also involved in promoting a stylish portable coffee grinder-cum-coffee-maker, Brewbuddy, launched in Britain by his father Kevin, 63, and sister Sophie, 31.

When a reporter called at the family’s smart £1m detached home in Virginia Water, Surrey, the curtains were drawn and there was no answer at the door.