His son was shot four times in a matter of seconds - once to his arm, knocking him to the floor, then twice in the back, and once in the head - and the man who pulled the trigger has walked free.

A diminutive middle-aged monk was bashed unconscious and left in handcuffs during a violent robbery at a monastery.

Danielle Cameron remembers her friends showing up laden with presents for her 10th birthday at the L&P cafe in Paeroa.

The daughter of a man fatally stabbed during a confrontation at a Mt Albert mansion said her father's life was "cruelly and unjustly taken from him".

A businessman has been sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter after a fatal stabbing at his Auckland mansion.

A career criminal confessed to friends he stood guard while Jane Furlong was murdered and helped dispose of her body.

New tests will be carried out by police and forensic scientists on the gun used in the Bain family murders next week.

Justice Minister Judith Collins' staff sought to stop a judge appointed to independently review David Bain's compensation case from "going completely feral".

The teenager accused of a vicious assault on homeless man Edwin Linder was on bail at the time of the attack.

A Hamilton pizza delivery driver was struck with a metal bar in the face and again as he tried to crawl away from his assailant as he was on the ground.

The family of homeless man Edwin Linder wept in court as they faced the teenager charged with an assault that led to his death.

A 12-year-old girl clutching a baseball bat confronted a man as he brutally assaulted the girl's mother, telling him to stop.

Homeless man Edwin Linder survived life on the dangerous streets of South Africa, and a near-fatal beating in Sydney, before he settled in Auckland's CBD.

A New Zealand man found guilty of shooting dead his mentally ill stepson in Perth has been spared jail.

A woman charged with murdering her godson told her biological children to lie about the incident when interviewed by police, a High Court jury heard today.

As her husband lay dying from gunshot wounds, Carmen Maheno struggled with her armed nephew, who struck her with the rifle, a court heard today.