A church minister has been cleared of assaulting an off-duty police officer who was refereeing his son's under-10 rugby game in a disagreement over a try.

A Far North couple fatally shot at their home will be buried together but their families are yet to decide where.

An Auckland man accused of killing his flatmate has been found to be "legally insane" at the time, according to a psychiatric report.

The brother of a Far North man who, along with his wife, allegedly died at the hands of his nephew says the double homicide has been a nightmare for the close-knit family.

A man is fighting for his life after being stabbed at a Snells Beach property north of Auckland last night.

The wife of a man shot and killed during a domestic incident in Fairburn has died in hospital this morning, reports say.

A man in his late 30's was airlifted to Auckland City Hospital after he was stabbed in the neck this evening.

Thirty years ago, 14-year-old Kirsa Jensen jumped on the back of her horse, Commodore, to take him for a ride down the beach. Today, her mother, Robyn, is still waiting, hoping to bring her daughter home.

Sitting on a dirty straw mat on the parched ground of southern Afghanistan, Masooma sank deeper inside a giant shawl. Hidden from view, her words burst forth as she told what happened to her family in pre-dawn darkness on March 11 last year.

Armed police and a dog were used to capture a man who doused himself with fuel and threatened to set himself alight after he allegedly assaulted another man.

An officer assaulted on the job was off work for more than two months because of the injuries he received.

A man who escaped from a New Zealand prison nearly 12 years ago has been arrested by British police for the murder of his gay lover.

When Rex Hawkins retired as a detective in 1990, a troubling loose end stuck in his mind - but that was resolved when Menzies Hallett was found guilty of murder.

British police are continuing an international hunt for a man with New Zealand connections, wanted in relation to the killing of his flatmate.

The man accused of murdering Turangi service station attendant Rodney Tahu has made a shock retraction of an earlier admission that he had killed the father of two.

A woman has described how her ex-husband showed her the revolver he allegedly used to gun down a service station worker, throwing it on her bed saying: "There it is."

Residents of the isolated Pureora Forest Park believe the person who killed Hamilton roadworker George Taiaroa may have camped out in the bush near their homes.

A pensioner facing trial over the murder of a service station worker 33 years ago told his former flatmate he had killed a man.

The ex-wife of a man accused of a 30-year-old murder told court he reached "flashpoint" when he was refused oil by the service station worker he allegedly gunned down.

Men said they felt boxed in by the pressure to be strong, and not just from other men, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

Kerre McIvor says it might be a really good idea for our government to sort out a way for the community to be alerted to the criminal expats walking among us.

People on Kerre McIvor's talkback show this week wanted to know why Jeremy McLaughlin's previous conviction for manslaughter was not able to be presented in court.

The detective who worked on Christie Marceau's death knew the teen before she was killed. Detective Sergeant James Watson has spoken for the first time in a new book about the infamous case.