Justices Thomas, Harland and Cull said that, along with provocation and the offender\u2019s age, should have lowered the sentence but did not erase criminal responsibility.<\/p>\n
The court stressed the conviction itself would stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe appeal against conviction is dismissed,\u201d the judgment said, while separately allowing the sentence appeal.<\/p>\n
Enere McLaren-Taana’s wh\u0101nau wore clothing bearing his face and name to the sentencing of his killer at the Dunedin High Court. Photo \/ Ben Tomsett<\/p>\n
On the day, the younger boy got off a bus and was confronted by McLaren-Taana, who taunted him and challenged him to fight. <\/p>\n
The court said the younger teen had been carrying a knife in a shoulder bag and, after a verbal exchange, pulled it out before chasing McLaren-Taana onto the road and stabbing him once in the abdomen. <\/p>\n
McLaren-Taana died later that day in hospital.<\/p>\n
At sentencing in the Dunedin High Court last year, the judge ruled the teen had not acted in self-defence and imposed a sentence of three years and three months\u2019 jail.<\/p>\n
But Justices Thomas, Harland and Cull took a different view, saying CCTV footage and psychiatric evidence showed the child\u2019s actions were influenced by fear and trauma. <\/p>\n
The court said he had previously been the victim of serious bullying and assault, had been diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD, and had begun carrying a knife because it gave him \u201ca sense of protection\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judges described the stabbing as a \u201c60-second incident involving a hypervigilant, impulsive child\u201d, and said the 13-year-old had reacted to threats from an older, larger teenager who had challenged him to fight.<\/p>\n
That meant the original starting point for sentencing was too high. <\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal reduced it from six years and two months to five years before applying discounts for youth, rehabilitation, remorse and time spent on electronically monitored bail, arriving at a final sentence of 31 months.<\/p>\n
The boy had also sought a discharge without conviction, arguing that a criminal record could lead to his deportation and derail his rehabilitation. <\/p>\n
The court rejected that argument, finding the consequences of conviction were not \u201cout of all proportion\u201d to the seriousness of the offending.<\/p>\n
In its ruling, the court said the fatal use of a knife against an unarmed person remained too serious to justify wiping the conviction, despite the boy\u2019s age and difficult background.<\/p>\n
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justices Thomas, Harland and Cull said that, along with provocation and the offender\u2019s age, should have lowered the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13236,9526,6375,1975,15117,30482,5767,15970,1349,6788,12940,13845,12513,11784,33445,6871,14108,6215,3234,111,43,139,69,1523,15359,8442,1336,5763,72230,15163,5163,4054,1335,1299],"class_list":["post-423281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-15yearold","tag-another","tag-appeal","tag-at","tag-boy","tag-bus","tag-convicted","tag-conviction","tag-court","tag-dunedin","tag-dunedins","tag-eight","tag-failed","tag-fatal","tag-fatally","tag-has","tag-however","tag-hub","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-overturn","tag-prison","tag-reduced","tag-sentence","tag-stabbed","tag-stabbing","tag-teen","tag-teenager","tag-term","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}