KEY POINTS:
Abuse was hurled at double-murderer Jason Reihana yesterday from the public gallery of the High Court at Rotorua as he was sent to jail for at least 21 years.
It is the sixth-longest minimum term imposed in New Zealand.
"Rot in hell," an angry man yelled at Reihana.
Other family members and friends of one of his victims - his former partner Teresa Gunn, the mother of his two sons - swore at the impassive 35-year-old former Waikato man as he was led away.
The group sat quietly at the back of the court throughout the two-hour sentencing, apart from giving audible approval when Justice Raynor Asher indicated a starting point of 23 years, which he then reduced by two years.
The family of the other person killed during Reihana's jealous rage, Ms Gunn's new partner, self-employed plasterer Andrew Grabner, were not present.
Flanked in the dock by two prison guards, Reihana stared ahead throughout the proceedings.
His only sign of emotion came when Justice Asher mentioned his children, aged 6 and 3, "two other major victims".
"They now have no mother," the judge said. "It is a cruel aspect of this case that they also have no father in their day-to-day lives. They have to live with the fact that their father murdered their mother."
Reihana's fatal knife attacks on Ms Gunn, 27, and Mr Grabner, 39, in Ms Gunn's Tauranga house on December 11, 2005, were frenzied and brutal, he said.
"It is hard to imagine a more violent invasion of a home than an approach by stealth and the sudden smashing down of the door."
Justice Asher said Reihana had a degree of premeditation in the week leading up to the murders, after Ms Gunn told him their five-year relationship was over.
He had become extremely threatening and abusive and shown such great hostility and anger towards her that she had feared for her life.
"There is no doubt you were having definite thoughts of killing Ms Gunn and anyone who was with her. These developed into a plan to go to Mansels Rd and kill her and yourself."
The judge said he accepted Reihana regretted taking innocent lives but his behaviour indicated a "fatalistic acceptance by you of what you have done, as if there was an inevitability of this arising from Ms Gunn's decision to end the relationship".
"I do not think you have fully accepted the implications of the damage you have done or that you have shown appropriate remorse."
Justice Asher accepted Reihana did not intend to kill Ms Gunn's brother-in-law, Wiki Ngarimu, who was in another bedroom trying to protect his partner and baby.
Reihana stabbed him through a part-opened door before realising Ms Gunn had escaped outside. He was jailed for eight years for injuring Mr Ngarimu with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, to be served concurrently with his murder term.
Longest non-parole periods:
1 Feb 2003 - William Bell, 25, jailed for a minimum non-parole period of 33 years for killing three people at the Mt Wellington-Panmure Returned Services Association on December 8, 2001.
2 Dec 2002 - Bruce Thomas Howse, 40, 28 years non-parole on his life sentence for the murders of his stepdaughters Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson in their Masterton sleepout on December 4, 2001.
3 April 2007 - Convicted double killer Graeme Burton given a sentence of preventive detention with a non-parole period of 26 years, after pleading guilty to all 11 charges arising from his rampage on Wainuiomata Hill in January, which left quad biker Karl Kuchenbecker dead and four others injured.
4 Aug 1995 - Joseph Stephenson Thompson, 37, the south Auckland serial rapist, 25 years non-parole for the rape and sexual assault of women and girls over a 12-year period.
5 July 1998 - Malcolm Rewa, non parole period of 22 years on his preventive detention sentence for a series of sex offences between 1987 and 1995. Rewa pleaded guilty to raping six women, but a jury later found guilty of raping 13 others.
6 June 2007 - Jason Reihana, 35, minimum non-parole period of 21 years for fatally stabbing his former partner, the mother of his two sons, and her new boyfriend in a fit of jealous rage.
7 June 2006 - David Konia, 53, sentenced to a minimum of 20 years imprisonment for stabbing to death two elderly Feilding friends after they didn't shout him a drink.
8 May 2005 - Antonie Dixon given life sentence with a 20-year, non-parole term for the murder of James Te Aute in Auckland and an enraged sword attack on Simonne Butler and Renee Gunbie at Pipiroa near Thames in January, 2003.
- NZPA
