KEY POINTS:
The businessman who chased down and then stabbed a teenage tagger could be on home detention within a year.
Bruce Emery, 51, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison when he appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday for the manslaughter of Pihema Cameron, 15, who had been tagging Emery's garage door with a friend on January 26 last year.
Outside the courtroom, defence counsel Chris Comeskey told reporters that Emery could be eligible for home detention in 11 months because of time he had already spent in custody and the fact he should be eligible for parole at the one-third mark of his sentence.
From its outset, the case sparked huge debate over the wider issue of tagging and of the right of property owners to protect their homes.
However, Justice Hugh Williams told Emery he was not being judged against the actions of the taggers or the massive public debate.
"You will not be sentenced on the basis that you killed a tagger. You will be sentenced on the basis that you committed manslaughter and were convicted of that for the death of Mr Cameron."
Justice Willams used the sentencing to voice concern over knife crime in New Zealand and to warn the public.
He said that in recent years New Zealanders had averaged 100 homicides a year - two a week - with knives or sharp stabbing instruments accounting for about 40 per cent of serious violent crime.
"There is widespread misunderstanding as to just how short a blade on a knife needs to be to kill someone. Your blade, Mr Emery, was 13cm in length, the depth of the stab wound some 5cm, and in fact it takes much less than that to kill someone."
Holding up a small white card to emphasise his point, Justice Williams said: "Less than the width of the short side of a credit card is enough to kill if it penetrates the ribs and the heart. And if the stab is to the vulnerable part of the neck half that distance - about 2cm - is all it takes to be lethal."
Justice Williams said it should be understood that people who carried knives in public places could end up spending two years in prison.
A stabbing which didn't cause death could result in a 14-year prison term and a stabbing that did cause death could carry a life penalty.
"People should not be carrying knives in public places in this country," he said before quoting a former chief justice who said in 1989: "One wonders whether people fully realise how deadly such a weapon is. In close-range encounter it's only slightly less lethal than a gun."
Earlier, soon after hearing six emotional victim impact statements, Mr Comeskey had said there appeared to be a lot of "extremely negative ill-feeling" among Pihema's family and said the younger members of the family needed to move on and look to the brighter side of life.
He called for home detention, saying a full custodial sentence would be "disproportionately unfair".
But Justice Williams disagreed, saying home detention was not a realistic outcome for a homicide case.
Aggravating factors against Emery were the use of a weapon, the vulnerability of Pihema and his friend who had taken alcohol and cannabis and the degree of premeditation involved in having the knife handy, and pursuing the boys in a chase more than 300m long, he said.
"You did not help him at the scene. You walked back to your home, washed the knife, secreted it, and said nothing to your wife and family and then remained in that position until the police approached you some hours later."
Mitigating factors were Emery's age, his good family standing and the fact that he was a respected member of the community.
Outside the court, Mr Comeskey said he was lodging an appeal against the conviction and part of the sentence next week.
He would not disclose the grounds on which the appeal was being made.
