Youth jailed for killing best friend

A Rotorua teenager who stabbed his best friend, who was trying to stop the teen hurting himself, has been jailed for three years. File photo / NZ Herald

A Rotorua teenager who stabbed his best friend, who was trying to stop the teenager harming himself with a knife, has been jailed for three years.

The youth was sentenced in the High Court at Rotorua today after pleading guilty to the manslaughter on August 20 of Tongarewa Thomas, 16. He had initially faced a murder charge.

Justice Christian Whata granted interim name suppression until Thursday, indicating he was leaning toward permanent suppression because of the youth's age and the principles of restorative justice. He invited formal submissions from defence counsel Andy Schulze before making a final decision.

During the three-hour sentencing it was claimed the youth, then 15, and Tongarewa Thomas had been best friends. On August 20 they were drinking at the teenager's Clinkard Ave home with the alcohol supplied by the 15-year-old's mother. The youth had also smoked some cannabis.

After a fight with his girlfriend he went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and indicated he was going to harm himself with it.

Justice Whata said the case was a tragic account of alcohol-fuelled violence during which Tongarewa had been stabbed in the groin while the pair were fighting in a bedroom.

It appeared Tongarewa was attempting to wrestle the knife from the youth and that the youth's girlfriend and a boarder at the house had also attempted to intervene.

"In a poignant moment after the blow you said he [Tongarewa] said he loved you," the judge said.

The teenager was distraught and had been heard to say if his friend was dead he would kill himself. He had described Tongarewa as his brother.

Tongarewa had collapsed on the front porch and was declared dead within a few minutes of an ambulance's arrival.

Referring to a victim impact statement from Tongarewa's mother, the judge said she was clearly heartbroken by the loss of her son, but after a restorative justice meeting had "in a deep spirit of forgiveness" pleaded for clemency for the youth.

"She says you are not a bad boy, but have had a bad life with a bad role model for a mother."

Tongarewa's father had said in his statement that when he could afford it, he drank to soften the pain of the loss of his "beautiful boy".

Commenting on the youth's family background, Justice Whata said it was obviously dysfunctional.

Despite the case's aggravating features, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child needed to be considered. He took into account that there was not any premeditation and the youth had taken a knife to harm himself, not Tongarewa, who had tried to stop him doing so.

He noted the accused was a talented artist and a promising sportsman with ambitions to become a rugby league player

Mr Schulze submitted the stabbing was unforeseen and unpremeditated. Tongarewa had intervened in an attempt to help the youth.

Crown prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch said the case was yet another demonstration of the many cases within the region dealt with by the Rotorua court that involved the fatal combination of alcohol and a knife.

Outside the court neither family would comment on the youth's sentence.

- NZPA