Tagger's killer sentenced to 4 years

Bruce Emery, tagger Pihema Cameron and lawyer Chris Comesky.

The man found guilty of the manslaughter of a 15-year-old tagger has been sentenced to four years three months in jail.

Bruce Emery stabbed Pihema Cameron after he caught him tagging his home in Manurewa in January last year.

Emery argued he had been defending himself during the incident in January 2008.

His lawyer Chris Comesky said at the time of his conviction that he would seek to keep Emery out of jail. Emery has been held in custody for the past two months leading up to today's sentencing.

Mr Comesky applied for home detention but this was denied by Judge Hugh Williams who said: "Home detention is not the equivalent of prison."

The starting point for sentencing in a case where one person stabs another was five to seven years imprisonment, but with mitigating factors it can be reduced to three-and-half to four years.

Justice Williams added he was unable to find a case of this nature.

He said the fact that a knife was used was serious. People did not realise that a blade the width of a credit card could kill someone.

But there were mitigating factors, including Emery's "family standing" and that he supported himself in the community.

Letters written to the court, the public's opinion - both for and against tagging - and media coverage were not taken into account during Emery's sentencing.

Justice Williams said in a pre-sentencing statement that Mr Emery felt "very angry" but "Mr Cameron's death goes against what you were brought up with and what you believe".

Today, Emery's wife was sitting in the front row of the High Court in Auckland with a small contingent of friends and family.

Pihema Cameron's mother Leanne was also in the courtroom with a number of supporters, many of whom were wearing T-shirts with a photo of the victim and the words "in loving memory".

She said in a victim impact statement she read out in court that she was working in Perth at the time to support her family. "Not a day goes by when I don't cry about my son. This man who killed my son had 300m to stop and think about what could have been."

"I've never felt so much hatred for a person to what I feel towards this man," Ms Cameron said.

"He destroyed and broke up my family over a bit of paint."

She said she was serving "a life sentence" with the loss of her son.

Godmother and aunt of Mr Cameron, Fracine Harrison, described the night she was told that Mr Cameron had died.