Nathan Frost in the High Court at New Plymouth after admitting the murder of his father Stephen John Frost and half-brother Regan Frost-Lawn. Photo / Simon O'Connor, Stuff pool
Nathan Frost in the High Court at New Plymouth after admitting the murder of his father Stephen John Frost and half-brother Regan Frost-Lawn. Photo / Simon O'Connor, Stuff pool
Double murderer Nathan Frost, who killed his father and half-brother in a frenzied early-morning knife attack, has had the time he must spend in prison reduced on appeal.
Frost, then 21, was sentenced at the High Court in New Plymouth to life imprisonment in 2021, after admitting he murdered Stephen John Frost, 55, and Regan Frost-Lawn, 15, at the family’s Hāwera home.
Justice Rebecca Ellis imposed the mandatory life prison sentence, along with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years.
A Court of Appeal decision released on Wednesday has reduced this minimum time that Frost must stay in prison to 18 years, after reviewing how Justice Ellis calculated it.
The High Court trial was told that in the early hours of January 18, 2021, Nathan Frost was distressed and crying in his bedroom, causing his father to check on him.
Frost, who’d consumed a large amount of alcohol, then attacked his father with a pipe wrench, which he used to strike him repeatedly about the head, jaw and arm as Stephen Frost fell to the ground unconscious.
Frost then unfolded a large hunting knife and stabbed his father in the neck, severing Stephen Frost’s carotid and jugular veins and lacerating his wind pipe.
At this point, Regan Frost-Lawn confronted Frost, telling his half-brother: “Get off him you mongrel”.
Frost then began attacking him, stabbing him repeatedly around the back and shoulder area, as well as four times in the neck.
Nathan Frost’s 14-year-old half-sister, who was in a sleepout outside the main house, escaped and called the police after her brother Regan called out a warning to her, even as he was being attacked.
Justice Rebecca Ellis presided over Frost's High Court sentencing. Photo / Simon O'Connor
In sentencing Frost, Justice Ellis calculated the minimum non-parole period by deducting three years from a starting point of 23 years.
She did not identify what part of that overall discount was a response to Frost’s guilty plea, and what part responded to personal mitigating factors that had been reported to the court.
“Given the different factors which apply to a guilty plea discount, and discounts for personal mitigating factors, we consider it is preferable for a judge to separately identify those components,” the Court of Appeal justices said.
They said a two-year discount, from the starting point of 23 years, would be an appropriate recognition of Frost’s guilty pleas.
They said a further discount of three years would recognise his “personal mitigating circumstances”.
These included his previous lack of convictions, his life experiences since witnessing his mother’s death at the age of 16, heavy alcohol use, and complex mental health issues.
Clinical reports had raised the possibility of an emerging or underlying psychiatric or psychotic illness.
The two discounts together resulted in a total reduction of five years from the non-parole starting point of 23 years.
“On that basis, we allow Mr Frost’s appeal and substitute an MPI [minimum period of imprisonment] of 18 years in place of the 20-year MPI set by the High Court,” the Appeal Court justices said.
“The order that Mr Frost serve a minimum period of imprisonment of 20 years is set aside and substituted with an order that Mr Frost serve a minimum period of imprisonment of 18 years.”
In the High Court, defence counsel Paul Keegan described his client as a “young, emotionally-damaged man”, and told the court how, at one point, he’d acknowledged that his actions were “disgusting” and that he’d “acted like a monster”.
In sentencing, Justice Ellis noted that Frost had harboured resentment toward his father over separating from his mother, and had been left a “ticking time bomb” by his use of drugs and alcohol.
She said Frost’s half-sister had escaped only through luck and quick thinking, and that Frost might have been sentenced for three murders.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.
