Hitchhiker killer sentenced to 17 years

1.00pm

UPDATE - Shane Hoko has been sentenced to serve a minimum of 17 years in prison for the killing of teenage hitchhiker Jennifer Hargreaves.

In the High Court at Auckland this morning, Justice Rhys Harrison sentenced Hoko, 32, to life in prison for the murder of Ms Hargreaves. The sentence carries a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

During the sentencing Justice Harrison allowed Hoko to address the court but Jennifer Hargreaves' adopted mother, Val, broke down weeping uncontrollably.

As Hoko turned around in the prisoners' dock to face the back of the crowded court he said: "My heart goes out to all of youse. All I can say is I didn't do it."

Justice Harrison adjourned the sentencing for about 20 minutes to allow Mrs Hargreaves to regain her composure.

Hoko was also given a concurrent term of seven years for rendering incapable a man who tried to help the woman.

Justice Harrison said the sentence had to reflect society's denunciation of the crime and the value of Miss Hargreaves' life.

One-armed Hoko was found guilty at a trial last month of strangling Ms Hargreaves in a south Auckland ditch in December last year.

He pointed a gun at motorist Brett Muirson and his two boys when he tried to help the young woman.

At the time of the killing Hoko, a Black Power associate, was on parole for detaining a person in a house in Meremere.

Hoko claimed that another man killed Ms Hargreaves and left him to take the blame.

Ms Hargreaves was hitchhiking to Invercargill for a reunion with her birth mother's family when she was picked up by the pair. She was killed in a ditch in Cuff Rd, Patumahoe.

Justice Harrison said he found that Hoko's offending justified a sentence of more than the minimum of 10 years.

He said among aspects that set the offending apart were its sheer brutality and that it was most likely to be sexually motivated.

Hoko, the judge said, had a lengthy list of previous convictions which was for relatively minor offending except for a 'sinister charge" of kidnapping in 1999 for which he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, reduced to two years' by the Court of Appeal.

Hoko was on parole at the time of the murder.

Outside the court Jennifer Hargreaves' adopted father, John Hargreaves, said he found it hard to grasp how a person in jail for a kidnapping offence could be "let out to commit another such crime".

- NZPA, HERALD STAFF