Sentences increased for "savage and brutal" attack

A newly-transferred prisoner thought he was going to die when two older inmates at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison grabbed him and slit his throat.
Found guilty by a jury of attempted murder, Mongrel Mob members Harley Vance Collier, 25, and Tiaki Lance Erueti Phillips, 23, were each sentenced to eight years imprisonment Friday, on top of the terms they are already serving for other violent crimes.
"This was a savage and brutal attack," said Justice Alan Mackenzie in the High Court at Wellington.
There was no clear motive for Collier and Phillips to sneak up on the newcomer in his cell a few hours after his arrival, the judge said.
The victim, Ahmed Najim, was convinced they had intended to kill him.
He was still living in fear more than a year later, although he had been transferred to another prison.
In his victim impact statement Najim said: "When my throat was cut I thought I was going to die at 18. I am too young to die. Sometimes I don't want to get out of prison because I am marked."
The court was told Collier jumped on Najim and held him in a headlock while Phillips cut the teenager's throat with a weapon made from the blades of a disposable razor.
Appearing for the Crown, Megan Inwood said the throat-cutting was premeditated and the pair acted together.
Phillips and Collier, she said, had attempted a "most serious execution" on a vulnerable young prisoner, leaving permanent injury.
Defence lawyers, Tony Snell for Phillips and Gretel Fairbrother for Collier, both stressed the youth of their clients and their disadvantaged upbringings. Justice Mackenzie said he regarded both men as equally culpable but acknowledged the inequality of cumulative sentences because each prisoner had been jailed on other matters under different sentencing regimes.