Three teen killers have life prison sentences quashed and non-parole terms reduced

Katrina Epiha was one of three convicted killers to have their life sentence reduced in a recent ruling. Photo / File

Three young killers have had their life sentences quashed and replaced by lesser prison terms.

All three of them – two young women and one man – had been convicted of murders they committed when they were teenagers.

A Court of Appeal judgment on their cases released on Friday reviewed the courts’ approach to sentencing young people for murder, including their “neurological immaturity” due to their age.

Beyond their youth, each of the young killers had a range of personal circumstances, including histories of “significant social deprivation” and psychological conditions. These also made them less culpable for the murders they committed, the court said.

Christopher James Brown, Georgia Rose Dickey and Katrina Roma Epiha all appealed their sentences for murder as “manifestly unjust”, and succeeded.

Along with life in prison, each had also been sentenced to minimum terms of 10 years without parole, and these have been reduced on appeal.

Dickey and Brown were both convicted for their part in the murder of Jack McAllister, 19, who was lured to the ILT Stadium in Invercargill by a group of young people in 2017.

When he arrived there, he was stabbed 14 times by a principal offender, Brayden Whiting-Roff, who was 20 at the time.

The Court of Appeal said the three appellants' neurological immaturity at the time of the killings mitigated their culpability. Photo / NZME

Dickey was 16 years old when McAllister died. She had been a victim of family violence and used drugs and alcohol.

Her life sentence was quashed and replaced by one of 15 years in prison, with no parole for seven and a half years.

Brown was 19 at the time of the murder. Between the ages of 3 and 6, he was placed in 57 foster homes, before being found a more stable placement.

He had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and significant mental health problems, including suicidal ideation.

Brown has an IQ that places him in the lowest 5 per cent of the population, the court heard.

His life sentence was replaced by one of 12 years in prison, with no parole for six years.

Epiha was convicted for the murder of Christchurch woman Alicia Maree Nathan, 32, also in 2017.

She was 18 years old when she stabbed Nathan in the neck during an argument over loud music at a party.

Epiha had a history of “profound social and cultural deprivation”, and psychological issues.

Her life sentence for Nathan’s murder was replaced by 13 years in prison with a non-parole period of seven years.

In each case, the court decided that it was “manifestly unjust”, or clearly unjust, in terms of section 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002, to sentence the defendants to life imprisonment.

The court found three factors in combination might render life imprisonment manifestly unjust for young murderers.

It said the indeterminacy of a life sentence might be difficult for a young person to grasp, and may be harmful in itself.

Secondly, the 10-year non-parole period potentially exacerbated the effects of imprisonment and was likely to weigh more heavily on a younger offender.

Finally, parole conditions and the risk of recall after release might “contribute to injustice” if they continued past the point where they were needed to guide rehabilitation and protect the community.

The court noted that it has not created, and could not create, an exception to the presumption of life imprisonment for all youth murderers. Such a category exception could only be made by Parliament, it said.

“We wish to state … that this should not be taken as a guideline judgment,” said the three judges, Justices Miller, Collins and France.

“This judgment involves only three appeals, and we did not sit as a full court, as we would usually do when setting sentencing guidelines.”

Whiting-Roff was not a party to the appeal. He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 12 years and six months.