17-year non-parole period for fatal stabbing

A 38-year-old man has been jailed for at least 17 years following an "avalanche of violence" during which he fatally stabbed Tauranga man Shane Kurth in the heart with a kitchen knife.

The 17-year non-parole period was handed down to former Tauranga man Steven Wearne Nightingale, 38, sentenced in the High Court at Rotorua on Wednesday, the Bay of Plenty Times reported.

Nightingale, was found guilty on March 4 of murder and aggravated burglary after a two-week trial. He claimed Mr Kurth attacked him with the knife and he only stabbed him in the back once while defending himself.

Nightingale's violent rampage on September 14, 2007, saw him assault his partner and three other men before stabbing fellow tenant Mr Kurth, 33, in an unprovoked attack at the Aaron Court apartments.

Mr Kurth suffered nine stab wounds, including the fatal blow which pierced two chambers of his heart, causing massive internal bleeding.

Crown prosecutor Duncan McWilliam described Nightingale's attack on Mr Kurth as being the culmination of an "avalanche of violence" meted out that day.

Mr McWilliam told Justice Lynton Stevens a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for the murder and aggravated burglary offences was warranted.

But Nightingale's lawyer Paul Mabey QC argued that Parliament had reserved the 17 years minimum non-parole period for a small number of the worst cases of murder and this was not a case which would justify that.

Nightingale also received concurrent sentences on one charge of assaulting a female and three of injuring with intent to injure which he admitted at the start of his trial.

- NZPA