Whangārei woman who stabbed victim in the back has jail sentence reduced

Rachel Karena was jailed for stabbing a woman in the back. Now, she has had her sentence reduced.

Rachel Karena had a kitchen knife in one hand and a can of gin in the other as she stood outside her victim’s home, waiting for her to return.

As the victim drove down her driveway, Karena tried to climb through her car window before a struggle ensued and the woman was stabbed in the back.

After a jury trial in Whangārei District Court, Karena was convicted of wounding with intent to injure and was sentenced to two years and 10 months’ imprisonment.

However, on appeal, her sentence has now been reduced by five months after she successfully argued the sentencing judge’s starting point was too high.

According to the Court of Appeal’s decision, released last week, the Crown case at trial was that Karena went to the victim’s house, after being asked not to, around 7.30pm on May 1, 2021.

The victim was not home but arrived soon after to find Karena standing on her driveway.

As the victim drove past, she confronted Karena, asking what she was doing there.

When Karena tried to climb through the car window, the victim got out and told her to leave.

The two walked a short distance down the driveway together before a struggle ensued and Karena dropped a can of gin.

Then, as the victim began walking back to her car, she bent over to pick up the can and Karena stabbed her in the back.

While still holding the knife, Karena walked to the end of the driveway and left in her vehicle.

The stabbing caused a two to three-centimetre cut behind the victim’s right armpit, which a doctor said in evidence had caused considerable blood loss.

According to the appeal decision, the sentencing judge understood the doctor’s evidence to be that the injury was life-threatening.

At trial, Karena denied stabbing the woman.

Her defence team argued that she had gone to the victim’s address but the victim was the sole aggressor and it was not Karena who had stabbed her.

Karena gave evidence that the victim attacked her and that there were other people at the scene at the time.

On appeal, she challenged both her conviction and sentence.

Her counsel argued that an edited version of her police interview was played at trial, which created a real risk that the outcome was affected and resulted in an unfair trial.

The trial was heard in the Whangārei District Court.

It was also submitted that the trial judge erred in ruling that Karena’s partner was a hostile witness.

But the Court of Appeal ruled that no miscarriage of justice had occurred and the appeal against conviction was dismissed.

However, in considering the appeal against sentence, Justices Edwin Wylie, Rebecca Edwards and Ian Gault found the sentencing judge’s starting point of 3½ years’ imprisonment was too high and that three years was appropriate.

They found the sentencing judge’s comments overstated the seriousness of the victim’s wound.

“[The doctor’s] evidence was that the wound was actively bleeding, which required it to be stitched closed. It therefore had the potential to be very serious in terms of loss of blood, but it only involved muscles and soft tissue,” the decision stated.

“She went on to say that, in the general area of the wound, there are ‘lots of important things’ like lungs and bigger blood vessels that could have been damaged but were not.”

The appeal judges ruled the seriousness of the injury should not be conflated with the risk of an even more serious or life‑threatening injury.

However, they did not accept that the sentencing judge should have given a greater discount for background circumstances and credit for her rehabilitative efforts, as was submitted by Karena’s counsel.

Her earlier sentence was quashed and replaced with one of two years and five months’ imprisonment.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff, where she covered crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.