Hello Sailor frontman Graham Brazier will be personally monitored by a District Court judge for 18 months to ensure he exorcises his alcohol demons.

Hello Sailor frontman Graham Brazier has been sentenced to intensive supervision and community work for assaulting his former and current partners.

Mayor Len Brown says there has been progress in making central Auckland safe, but admits more needs to be done to prevent deaths like that of Tarun Asthana.

The Royal New Zealand Navy has refused to say whether sailor Grenville McFarland has been stood down from service while on bail.

A 27-year-old has appeared in court in connection with an attack on a trainee primary teacher who died in Auckland hospital this morning.

Hamilton residents are being advised to check their home security following a series of intruder incidents in the east of the city on Sunday.

The trial of two men accused of being involved in the kidnap and murder of Hamilton woman Rae Portman continues in the High Court at Auckland this morning.

The mother of a young man brutally assaulted in central Auckland was by his bedside last night praying for a miracle, but had already forgiven his attacker.

A key Crown witness against two men charged with the kidnap and murder of Hamilton woman Rae Portman has denied killing her himself.

A man convicted of taking part in the kidnap of Rae Portman says he was threatened to go along with the plan by the man accused of her murder.

"He said he had buried something from a previous job." A witness continues giving evidence in the kidnap and murder trial of Hamilton woman Rae Portman.

A man currently serving time in prison for kidnapping a Hamilton woman has told a High Court trial he had no idea she was destined to be killed.

On the few occasions the quiet and self-effacing Bijan Ebrahimi ventured outside his drab council maisonette on the outskirts of Bristol.

A man accused of the kidnap and murder of a Hamilton woman was seen by witnesses strangling her to death and hiding her body, the Crown says.

A man accused in relation to the kidnap and murder of a Hamilton woman in 2012 did not know she had been killed, a court has heard.

The Queensland Court of Appeal has dismissed suggestions the death of NZ man Brent Dumper at his daughter's house-warming party on the Gold Coast was an accident.

A man accused of killing expatriate New Zealander Robert Wilkinson has been found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

The wife of a man fatally stabbed at New Year's in Waihi Beach told a jury of her encounter of a "non-threatening" and "polite" teen accused of killing him.

The brother of a woman raped and murdered in 1992 said he is disappointed the man jailed for his sister's murder was denied parole.

Convicted murderer and rapist Teina Pora is "really upset with himself" after he was declined parole for breaching his home leave conditions to visit a prostitute.

High Court hears a man accused of killing a man in Waihi Beach bragged to New Year's revellers he was "the king" and that he had "shanked someone."

Justice demands that a couple of heads be rolled down Molesworth St, says Rodney Hide.

A man caught up in a defamation case against Joe Karam has retracted his admission he lied under oath, telling the High Court he's "surviving on coffee at the moment".

A public campaign attacking Joe Karam's reputation led to the "worst four years" of his life, a court has been told.

A public campaign attacking Joe Karam's reputation led to the "worst four years" of his life, a court has been told.

Joe Karam's defamation case against two Justice for Bain members opened in the High Court at Auckland today.

The Parole Board has reserved its decision over whether Teina Pora will be granted parole.