"You can't compensate for the loss of a child, but there were so many expenses the Government doesn't seem to understand." Sophie Elliot's father speaks out.

"All I saw was blood," said a horrified neighbour who watched as a man was hit with a golf club and then repeatedly kicked while he lay on the ground yesterday.

Horse racing trainer Steve Anderton has died in hospital after a freak accident at the family stables near Mosgiel yesterday.

No charges will be laid in relation to the death of a man in Otago Corrections Facility four years ago.

Behaviour associated with an inner city Dunedin flat has upset a nearby business owner, who claims racial and sexual taunts have been hurled at her from drunken revellers.

The family of a Dunedin woman who had her head split open with an axe fears her attacker will finish what he started.

Dunedin City Council is to review parking arrangements at Forsyth Barr Stadium, after Wilson Parking's $65 fines were slammed as ''exorbitant and unreasonable".

Lawyers say fines levied by a private car park provider aren't legal, after a Dunedin woman slammed a $65 fee for returning to her car 11mins late.

A woman has reacted to what she has described as an ''unbelievable'' and ''extraordinary'' $65 parking fine she received at a Dunedin car park.

The 29-year-old woman who suffered serious burns outside a Dunedin service station has been transferred to Middlemore Hospital's burns unit.

"I saw a person burning from the waist up". Witnesses have described their horror at seeing a woman catch fire at a Dunedin petrol station yesterday.

A French vacationer scrambled to throw as many valuables as he could out of a burning building yesterday - only to watch the grass around them catch fire.

George Phillips and Mike Neumegen were a couple of Dunedin uni students when their part-time work as freelance web designers led them to hit on a business idea.

Severe thunderstorms may hit Dunedin, North Otago and Clutha this afternoon bringing heavy rain and hail as large as 20mm to some areas, MetService warns.

Stunned staff and some 100 swimmers watched in disbelief as a fun-loving sea lion waddled through reception and cafe to "swim laps" in a public pool yesterday.

Swimmers were this afternoon evacuated from a public pool after a sea lion "waddled through" reception and entered the water.

Police are investigating after an elderly Dunedin couple was found dead in their home this morning.

Former Dunedin mayor Peter Chin is recovering in hospital after being revived by an Air New Zealand crew shortly after takeoff.

Mike Rankin counts himself lucky, despite his new truck plummeting over a bank at his Caversham home.

Two cases of ATM "shoulder surfing" have come before Auckland courts today, covering tens of thousands of dollars of alleged offending.

A fire which destroyed a house and damaged another was started by a Dunedin man trying to inhale cannabis over an lpg heater, the Dunedin District Court has been told.

Silver Fern Farms faces a bill of up to $3 million after it was ruled it made more than 100 Dunedin seasonal meat workers redundant.

A surge in the supply of methamphetamine is being pushed by gangs on a "willing market" in the south, police say.

The case of a promising young rugby player who avoided conviction for breaking a man's jaw has again raised concerns that sportspeople have a 'get-out-of-jail-free card'.

An osteopath who left electric acupuncture needles in a patient's backside while he went to a cafe for sausage rolls has been found to have discredited his profession.

Dunedin motorists were stunned to see a man sitting on a couch and holding on to the rear of a moving car as it left a trail of sparks behind him.